The purpose of this thread is NOT to immerse ourselves into endless arguments about personal preference. What I want from this thread is that people would reflect on what meaning the words realism and realistic have to them. Hopefully this will lead into a fruitous analytical plurality and we will later be able to somehow classify the realisms into groups or whatever.

So I want you to just answer the topic question from your personal PoV and then tell us how it is realistic. Do not leave your conception of realistic/realism implicit. Try to define it analytically and communicate your idea to others. For the sake of conreteness use your "realistic game" as an example. Please keep the number of example games small and your summaries of them compact. Also keep in mind that realistic is not the same as good. You don't have to like your realistic game or realism in general.

Do not question the choices of other forum members. That will lead to the undesirable "My game is better than yours and you are not a real gamer!"-debate.

Do not question or critizise the analytical definitions of other people. Do not open arguments where you try to covince others of the superiority of your definition. Those arguments should start a thread of their own or be conducted privately. You can however tell us if you think that your realism is the same as the realism of some other forum member.

I would also appreciate if you begun your post by telling me how horrified/angry/frustrated you were when you first noticed the topic on the forum, before you read what it is about. Rate it on a scale from 0 to 100. ;-)

Here comes my realistic game:

Harnmaster and Harn-setting

For me realism means that the in-game reality is close to the actual reality. It also tends to mean that the realistic reality is represented in detail by the system and the setting-material.

Harnmaster (1st ed.) rules have lots of things that are realistic in this way: pre-game character creation (character skills determined by his backround, 75% of PCs are born unfree), skills reflecting medieval European society instead of fantastic classes, infections, deadly combat, rules for activites other than adventuring (commerce and crafts), and low probability of having a fantasy race character (vast majority are humans).

Harn-setting is very close to the medieval Europe: Cultures and society are detailed and similar, the map of the world is very similar, low and rare magic, only few fantastic creatures, the abundance of mundane political plot hooks instead of "adventures", weather tables which create lots of rain, the interest which is given to everyday life of the inhabitants (like detailed descriptions of manorial villages and stuff) and - most of all - the toilets in castle floor plans.

Hmm. I'd be tempted to go with Harn as well, except that it's hard to agree that a game with magic in it is the most realistic. In fact, the world of Harn is obviously fictitous, so doesn't that detract from how realistic it is. Especially assuming the definition you give, Johannes?

My point is that I think that role-playing games, due to their fantasy origins, have an interesting definition of realistic. From day one, these games have been set in alternate worlds. As such, what realism has come to mean is something more like:

Given a certain set of assumptions that may themselves be realistic or not, a realistic game will produce results that seem to answer the question, "What would happen in our world were the assumptions true?"

Which is interesting. I mean you can play a GURPS game about, say, being a detective or something, and stay completely on Earth, completely within accepted descriptions of our reality, and include nothing that could not happen today. That would be more realistic to me given the definition you give. But nobody really cares about that part of the definition. It's not important that there not be unrealistic assumptions. We just buy into those. What has to be realistic (when this is desired) is the way that things are interpereted given that baseline. Results produced by the system have to flow consistently and logically from cause to effect. The setting has to seem to have evolved from basic principles.

From the thread on the two types of realism we have the concept of the type one and type two realism. What we're talking about here is Realism 1. But as I've noted, few people would be what I'd call Radically Type 1, wanting to play only on our Earth with as few differences as possible.

In addition to the fantasy roots of RPGs, I think this is also attributable to the fact that RPGs share something with literature. That is, we know they are a ficiton to start. Given that, there's no reason why certain assumptions can be made and accepted. Leaving realism only to cover consitency, and logical progression to define realism.

As such, GURPS is only so-so at realism. But in some ways Harn is worse. While it's setting is certainly consistent and built from principles up to the point that it's impeccable in this regard, the system itself still has all sorts of baggage from it's wargamig heritage. As such, I wouldn't rate it too highly. Yes, there are some things that their combat system does well, but even that is flawed.

But this is problematic. All systems as simulations of in-game reality are going to fail the Type 2 Realism test at some point. Especially when forced to resolve certain things that they are not designed to resolve. Thus most combat systems only do so well when outside of combat. And have stilted versions of what combat is like. Further, it can be argued (and is by some) that more unrealistic detail provided by a system is less realistic than less unrealistic detail. Thus the "less is more" camp in terms of system. One could reasonably argue that a resolution system that involved the players just narrating what they thought was most realistic was bound to be more realistic in the end than any amount of mechanics.

The opposing camp will state, however, that they feel that arbitrary mechanics deliver a feeling of being Immersed in the setting. This is yet another sort of realism. One that these folks are unwilling to do without. Others never get a sense of realism no matter what you do in an RPG (knowing after all that it is a fiction), and are therefore not concerned with realism at all. Anything is realistic to them as long as it provides their other needs.

When it comes down to it, it must therefore be preference. The preferences being what level of mechanics are good to deliver the feeling of realism, and the level to which realism can be felt to be delivered at all. Between these and other personal criteria, what is considered realistic is going to vary widely.

Mike

The term "realism" is used by gamers to mean several different things, which is why it isn't generally found as a useful term on the Forge.

Most common by far, IME, is the use of "realism" to indicate rigorous detail in representing the physics of the game world. In-game results should be arrived at in the same way that nature arrives at real-world results. To determine the outcome of the sword swing, one takes into account the size and shape, weight and length, of the sword, the arm strength and control of the wielder, the local physical conditions, and so on.

The problem with such complex systems is that they are often broken. Real life has a practically infinite number of variables for any given occurance, meaning that rigorously detailed physics systems will produce many errors that are propagated from round-off errors. Usually these problems are most noticeable at the extreme ends of the game's provided scale. (I.e., there are inconsistencies when high skill-levels are reached, or between large and small entities, for example.)

This is the source of the continuing internet flame-wars about system. To a Simulationist, consistency with something is of primary importance. The obvious approach to maintaining consistency is to monitor the environment with as much detailed control as possible. But when the system inevitably breaks as previously described, you get advocates for different systems arguing about how this or that system has this or that problem.

Another way (a more reasonable way, IMO) the word "realism" is used is to refer exclusively to the results of the system, regardless of how this results are produced. So long as the results are consistent with reality, it makes no difference what sort of abstractions were used.

A third use of the word is to represent "genre emulation," meaning that the setting presents results not necessarily in keeping with the real world, but that the results are consistent with the imagined world.

One often finds D&D vs. the World flamewars on the internet, one side complaining that D&D is not realistic for high level characters, the other side maintaining that it meets its genre requirements. (This is actually a bit circular if you ask me. D&D is it's own genre defined by itself. Of course it meets its genre requirements . . . :)

From a more narrativist perspective, I think of "realism" meaning "produces stories that are true to the source material." In this way, The Questing Beast is a realistic game . . . it produces stories that are very like the Arthurian Romances.

In a nut-shell, realism in gaming most simply means consistency with something. (Hence it's a favorite term of simulationists.) There's just a great deal of confusion about what that something is.

Interesting question. Personally, I don't have any solid criteria for for "realism" or anything similar. If it's sold to me properly, I will buy it.

You see, way I see it, realism in an RPG is kind of like a magic trick, it's misdirection. You get people looking at the right things while not looking at the stuff you don't want them to see.

So I don't have a preference, really. I'm easy like that. Show it to me in the right light and I'll buy it.

Johannes said: So I want you to just answer the topic question from your personal PoV and then tell us how it is realistic.
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Hmmm... personally, probably from my own experiences in the "real world" is that realism comes greatly from impotence. Seriosly. I think for instance for combat to be realistic, it must feel very dangerous and undesirable. Usually the people who enjoy hurting other people do so at an unfair advantage... there's no cop that say's "whoo hooo! 10 back robbers! Hold my gun while I fight them!". Realism (again, you asked for people to voice their own opinion) comes greatly from the fear of death and injury.

Here's a question though... should something realistic be "reproducible under the same conditions" or "totally insanely random"?


Dont mean to be too sarcastic but it reminds me of something some one said: "Do you want a realistic gun fighting game? Ok, every one flips a coin, if they get heads they die"

"ups, heads... but I was covering behind a couch!"

"Ok, they shot the couch, flip again"

"heads"

"your dead".

What would the game look like? Feathers flying every where, lots of blood and noise... your friend is dead next to you and you might have been the one who shot him... much more realistic.

Hey all,

Life imitates art imitates life.

Rather than write a thesis on realism and its application to the narrative/dramatic, I will take the opposite approach and ask, "Who cares?" I find realism as a goal to be terribly pointless.

People spend their whole lives driving, but are terrible at it. People are much worse judges of character than simple algorithms. People are terrified of flying but happily drive like maniacs down the block to the grocery store. People are terrified of being dead, but once they reach the state of being dead are certainly in no position to care. People buy firearms to protect themselves from being shot, thereby placing themselves into the statistically significant category of people likely to die by gunshot.

In short, people are terrible judges of character, terrible judges of probability, terribly afraid of being afraid, and so on. The universe is a giant mystery and could easily be replaced by a skinner box with two levers which randomly dispense pleasure and pain. What would be the point of modelling that?

Roleplaying games write out in black and white exactly how life, the universe, and everything operate. Even when events are written as a probability, a mathematically valid model of behaviour arises which predicts the correct actions to reach a given goal. The only truly unpredictable input lies in our fellow gamers. And we consider the behaviour of our fellows to be the most easily understood part of the hobby.

Later,
Grant

Thing is, Grant, people ask for it. Realism is a top priority.

OTOH, since they all want something different, I'm not sure how to cater to that. My best advice is internal consistency. It seems to me that as long as a game is internally consistent that it manages to get past most people's basic level of reality requirements. Past that, specific dessign goals are going to overshadow any effort to cater to all sorts of realism demands.

So I agree that it's not something too worth worrying about when designing.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Thing is, Grant, people ask for it. Realism is a top priority.

First let me explain myself more clearly. I didn't start this discussion to propagate realism (or againts realism) and I am very aware of the fact that it means a lot of different things which makes it a problematic concept. The intended purpose of this thread was to map out the different things people mean by realism. At the moment the thread seems to be doing this very well. However I would like if you also offered your realistic games as examples.

By analytical reflection of realism I did not mean that you should define realism rigorously. You can do it if you can but thats not the point. Rather I suggest you take your personal meaning of realism and then analyze what you have ment by the word. This will result in less than rigorous or logical "definitions" but thats nothing to be shamed of because our everyday conception of world is quite unanalytical. (Most people think that computers eat electricity etc.) Look at it as an exercise in discourse analysis.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: Thing is, Grant, people ask for it. Realism is a top priority.

This comment is a bit off-topic, but IME people ask for a lot of things, even when they have no idea what they're asking for or if they'll really want it.

Marco said: If that happens in a game someone is running they may well (and validly, IMO) complain about "realism."

Yeah, I would complain. But that's because for me "running" is always the most realistic thing to do... that's why I loved silent hill.


Examples? Mmm... well for what I was saying (characters having a realistic fear of death and injury, no matter what kind of game) can be seen a lott in my "fantasy heartbreaker" and well in some other games. Typical examples:

Chip is playing a vampire. Vampires are tough, strong and fast, imune to pain! Vampires can easily raid a caravan protected by archers in order to drink blood and gain ritches. At least thats what chip though... one arrow in the neck latter (its hard to approach archers without getting shot before getting there... at least he wasent human) and he was runing away blindly and dizzy, several other arrows hit him in the back unill he sliped off the side of the hill and rolled into safety. Not too glamorous, but certanlyl more "realistic" from my point of view than "I can do 4 attacks per turn, I kill the 4 mounted archers". Now time to remove the arrows (ouch... half an hour at least) and find a bridge to crawl under before dawn.

For me realistic means that characters have arms and legs, hearts and brains, lungs and kidneys. And that the rules of course simulate this without looking like an anatomy book picture but instead a functional organ.

Also In my game only NASTY (good hit, lotsa damage) rolls check for location... just to avoid getting a splinter and yelling "oww! My liver!". Again that wouldent be too realistic. Also there arent too many locations, its not done organ by organ but instead by general body areas producing a nasty effect. Get impailed... your coughing up blood. No way an oponent could guess that "Haha! I hit is right lung" so a series of painful to deadly effects exist for the "chest area".

Some other "realistic" effects can be accomplished with very little effort. Want armor that decreases in value during combat? How's bout every critical reduces that armor by one... for instance if your pierce an oponants heart and then try to sell an armor with a big friggin hole in the chest... dont expect to get much out of it. And this sure beats giving armors "hitpoints" or other crap like that...

Also again realistic is that NPC's have as much emotion or more than the players (some players suck at emotion). I like to make hostages freak out and cry while their kidnappers are killed. "Villains" should have a family whenever possible. If a game includes Orcs, then the Orcs attack humans because for as long as they can remember humas would attack Orcs. Of course that's always up to me "the story teller" but I think the story teller is as important as the source material or moreso.

Mike Holmes wrote: Thing is, Grant, people ask for it. Realism is a top priority.

Mike

I think you're probably oversimplifying Jonathan. AoR is one of my favorite games, I find the War card to be MORE fun as an unknown...do I win or do I get screwed card than an automatic win. I would in fact find it very irritating to know that some one could easily and randomly overthrow many turns of careful expansion by simply playing a card and be guarenteed that it will work.

So I don't know that its a matter of fun vs realism so much as what counts as fun.

That said the fact that warfare in the period WAS a dangerous game (in the sense that even the most powerful military states couldn't reliably roll over their opposition freely) and that the aggressor often lost more than they gained as a result, part of the fun of the card is indeed to make the player weigh the risk.

Valamir wrote: I think you're probably oversimplifying Jonathan.

quozl wrote: Perhaps realistic is just funner than not realistic to many people.

Valamir wrote: So the original question is completely unanswerable except on an individual basis.

Johannes wrote: So I want you to just answer the topic question from your personal PoV and then tell us how it is realistic.

Hi there,

Emily, your post is the only reason I'm replying, because you clarified Johannes' intent of getting at individualized responses. That said, I want to stress all of Ralph's points too - everything in his post is what anyone who plays the "realism" card in RPG discussions needs to read.

Johannes, for me, "realism" is about decision-making. For play to be satisfying for me, characters' decisions need to carry emotional identification for me as a participant. That is not to say that I personally agree with the decision being made, but rather that I can see its value, weight, or underlying conflict.

The best example is actually the topic of my soon-to-be-released supplement for Sorcerer, called Sex & Sorcery. I loathe playing in games in which characters of different genders are all ... the same. Just Kens and Barbies, with no gender-reflective weight to them at all. Two male characters (A and B) may be very different from one another, but how they are male matters - to me, to you, to everyone at the table, and to everyone who might encounter this particular story in any way.

Two female characters (C and D) might be played in the same group, and let's say female character C has a lot in common with male character A, in terms of how they deal with things, and what they think is right or wrong, to a very great extent differently from character B or D. That doesn't negate the fact that how C and D are female matters, as such, and as a real issue of play.

This is only one of many ways in which much role-playing negates the characters' decisions as relevant to anything outside their own box, or even negates the box itself as anything conceivably interesting to a human being. When the characters become only an expression of a set of consistent but irrelevant fictional constraints - such as pure strategy-machines, or pure "let's all get along" constructs, or pure "blue fuzzy aliens that are nothing like humans," or for that matter, conventional stereotypes - then realism has vanished for me.

In my view, the term really has nothing whatsoever to do with the "reality" of the imagined world, constraints of time or space, or plausibility, or anything similar.

Best,
ron

Nicotine Girls is the most realistic RPG. That's because a) it can be set in CDGA Sr Academy, the Eastview mall, and a Model UN convention in 1989-90; b) it can feature Connie, Stacy, Stacy and Deb; c) it can have a supporting cast of me, Gary, Joe, Clark, Porter, Matt, and Karston the German exchange student; and d) it's likely that none of Connie, Stacy, Stacy and Deb's dreams will come true.

-Vincent

I suggest an alternative to the term "realism." Try this on for size: "degree of willing suspension of disbelief." The term "willing suspension of disbelief" comes from literary analysis. Tolkien's characters from The Hobbit are not realistic, but they are certainly considered believable by most people. Piers Anthony's characters from the Xanth novels are even less realistic, but are still believable to persons willing to further extend their suspension of disbelief.

I suspect strongly that discussing the degree of willing suspension of disbelief will result in less confusion and greater utility for both narrativists and simulationists.

Hi Thingmaker,

And welcome to the Forge!

With respect, I disagree with you on several counts.

#1 concerns my post above, specifically. I am actually citing something which is the very opposite of "suspension of disbelief" - the utterly unswerving, unforgiving, and demanding expectations that people bring regarding characters' behavior in fictional situations. I don't consider this to have any fantastical or speculative elements at all. Of course, the post only concerns my own outlook, and so is not especially important at the higher levels of debate, but I do think it represents a single falsifying point.

#2 is more general, based on the observation, which is the basis of Johannes' post, that "realism" is frequently cited in gaming texts and debates, as a thing-in-itself (however wrongly). He's interested in that thing, or the illusion of that thing. Even if there is a better word for it, "realism" is the term under discussion because it's part of the cultural landscape of the hobby.

#3 is most general, and I hope it doesn't spawn a string of outrage like the last one I posted about this topic - which is that "suspension of disbelief" may be itself controversial as a term, perhaps even more so than realism when examined critically.

Best,
Ron

Wow, lots going on here.

First, Jonathan, I agree with Ralph in all particulars. But I'd have pointed this out, first. What would you have said, if the other people had said that their reason for wanting to keep the rule the same was, "Because it's more fun that way." You'd have promptly asked them why. And then they'd have said, "Because it's more realistic." So, they were just skipping a silly step. And you should have known that. Think about it. What if the situation had been reversed, and you'd said, "Because it's more fun that way."? They'd have then asked you why. And what would you have answered? Something about how it makes the card more effective, and therefore a more rewarding event when played. Or something to that effect, no?

That's a better answer than realistic? Just a preference.

The fact that the rewarding nature of realism surprises you makes me think that you're joking. Or do you really find it that hard to believe that realism can provide fun for people like me. Yes, I'm a "realist" of a sort. In fact, I've been known to say that if a game is abstracted enough so that the mechanics cannot uniquely be identified with the "setting" for a game, that I don't like playing such games. Because it's at that point that you can't test real world derived hypotheses in-game. Without that, why play with any setting at all? Realism may not be your thing, but for some people it's crucial.

Ron,

Traveller has touted it's "egalitarian" treatment of females as both a step forward in Feminism, and a realistic result of a futuristic world. Is the "box reduction" made manifest in that game a pro or a con? I'm pretty sure that you'll say it's a bad thing. While setting realists like myself would argue the opposite. Just another case of what were talking about here of differing opinions. Could we call these two schools Narrativist Realism and Sim Realism? Tempting, but likely problematic.


Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: The fact that the rewarding nature of realism surprises you makes me think that you're joking. Or do you really find it that hard to believe that realism can provide fun for people like me.

Mike

This will be difficult to say without confusing GNS terms. Note the use of the word (small 's') simulation. :)

I think a great deal of dichotomy between "realism fanciers" and "realism indifferents" stems from different approaches to enjoyment. Saying "I enjoy realism" or "I dislike realism," and drawing a line between them as simple matters of preference is somewhat over-generalising.

The crucial question is: Does one derive enjoyment from the actual mechanics of the RPG? Are they fun to use? Or does one derive enjoyment from the simulation of a reality, the mechanics of the RPG being important only insofar as they affect that simulation?

Let's take Go for example. Is it "realistic?" Well that's hard to say. Realistic compared to what? There's really no frame of reference. Go is its own universe. It's fun for the sake of its own abstract mechanics.

An RPG analogy is The Questing Beast. The mechanics are fun to use, because . . . they're fun to use. In a game design sense, TQB is fun for its own sake as an abstract game, just as Go is.

People who are looking for this sort of enjoyment do not care at all about how well the mechanics simulate anything.

Alternatively, if your enjoyment is in correctly simulating an environement (I.e., realism, in whatever shape or form) then the mechanics of TQB will not help you at all.

I associate realism primarily with the human or human-equivalent characters of a game setting. I don't care if rivers flow uphill or a warrior can take six arrows without slowing down. But realism to me requires that the people in the game world exhibit human nature, collectively as well as individually.

If the people don't exploit available economic opportunities, cut corners when they can get away with it, or form alliances when it's in their mutual interest to do so, they're not believable. If all virgins who are "of age" must enter a lottery to determine who gets fed to the dragon, and there are any virgins who are "of age," they're not believable. If power vacuums go chronically unfilled, they're not believable. If readily usable magical spells could clearly obviate the need for all agriculture, and agriculture is still practiced, they're not believable. If extensive criminal classes exist, and yet some completely feasible and extremely advantageous technology is not practiced because it's been outlawed, they're not believable.

When the people aren't believable, it reflects on the people, not on the background details that create the contradiction. My brain isn't wired to understand dragons; it's pretty neutral on the question of whether or not it makes any sense that a dragon would consume only female virgins. But it's very prejudiced about human nature, and so it rejects the idea that any family would allow a girl to be in a condition causing such a high risk of fatality, unless there are strong reasons (such as even more dire consequences) for acting otherwise.

(And that last paragaph stands as my answer to the cliche realism-in-RPGs claim: "You have a world where dragons can fly, you can't complain that [some particular thing] is unrealistic." Yes I can, and I do, if that thing contradicts human nature.)

One likely result, therefore, of this kind of unrealism is ultimately that it makes the people seem dense. For instance, I believe that it's commonly perceived, but rarely mentioned, that the people (and other sentient creatures) inhabiting "standard fantasy" settings are a little on the dim side. Parody almost always brings this out. For instance, the story "Horse Sense" from XXXenophie no. 6 includes this delightful bit of dialog:

Uriah: "Ever since we got sucked here from Earth, we met dragons, elves, monsters, giants, wizards, and who knows what else, right? And what did they all have in common?"

Sybil: "Um... They've all been pretty stupid."

Uriah: "Exactly!"

Interesting discussion:

Jon: I can't imagine you (i.e. the view you expressed in your last post) placing you in anything but the extreme minority in wargaming. Not that that's a bad thing. But I would say there are PLENTY of wargamers who would support Design for Effect over Design for Cause, or be satisfied with abstraction at a higher level than others (me for one)...but they're still completely concerned with Realism...just (as I pointed out) have different ways of getting to a level of realism they concider worth while. The idea of a wargamer being unconcerned at all with realism...you would be the first and only such person I've ever met to say that. I wonder if what you label as a wargame is different from what I would.

Panzer Blitz is a wargame. Squad Leader is a wargame. Europa is a wargame. Older (pre wizard-thing and Victory) Columbia Block games were war games. We The People (with some HIGHLY design for effect elements that I love but other grognards hate) is a wargame. Age of Renaissance is not a wargame (one of my favorites...but not a wargame). There are wargames, and then there are games with war in them.


Nathan: Yup


Walt: Couldn't agree more...while unlike you I wouldn't make that the primary distinction between real unreal, its definitely a factor. I remember at the young age of...hmmm...call it 10 or 12 reading the 1ed AD&D DMs guide (which as a young whippersnapper I read cover to cover multiple times like a favorite novel) and encountering one of my first moments that you describe. It occured in the section on building a castle. Wait a minute says I. A magic user can cast Wall of Stone at 9th level which is permanent and Dig at 7th level. Who in the world would be building a castle...

Valamir wrote: Interesting discussion:

Jon: I can't imagine you (i.e. the view you expressed in your last post) placing you in anything but the extreme minority in wargaming. Not that that's a bad thing.

I've been struggling with an answer for this one because I kept thinking I'd read what sounded like the whole axis which 'realistic games' slid up and down. I felt I'd finally seen the 'how and why' that people try to achieve 'more realism' in game design, but I'll be damned if I had much luck finding it...

Until tonight.

What do I think realism is analytically? Well the most important part about it has to do with game design. One of the things most designers, bent on 'realistic' design, really mess up in their minds is the difference between simulation and emulation. In other realms of design, simulation is when you have 'the guts' of the process set up to follow the patterns that reality uses to generate results. Emulation is when 'the guts' have no real bearing on 'what is real' and the results are crafted to be more and more convincing.

What these misguided game designers seem to think is that they are somehow, in some twisted way, simulating reality. I've yet to see any game mechanic that does more than just a miniscule amount of hand-waving while 'going deep' into emulation. The more the designer 'attempts' simulating, the less 'realistic' the results are.

That brings us to Ralph's (Valamir's) point about "design for cause" or "design for effect." This runs parallel to the whole 'simulation versus emulation' issue, but doesn't necessarily subscribe to the fallacy of true simulation (which absolves those designs). Personally, I see no point in tabletop role-playing games to attempt any level of simulation, or "design for cause" for that matter, and take all of my designing the other way.

But it always puzzled me why people felt they could, or were, designing more and more 'realistically' (especially simulatively). That question was finally answered by something Gareth (contracycle) posted a link to.

That web page deals with board games, but taken a different way, almost perfectly describes ways to approach role-playing game design. While I'd call them 'the techniques of convergence,' the web page calls it The Two Rules of Congruence:

• Whenever possible, the structures of the game should mirror the structures of the content.
• The structures of the game should never contradict the structures of the content.

If you apply this again and again to your design, always trying to increase the 'congruence,' your game design will become more 'realistic.'

I suppose.

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

I have to say that both Ron ("characters' decisions need to carry emotional identification for me as a participant") and Walt ("that the people in the game world exhibit human nature") begin to make deep scratches in the surface. I mean to me the core elements of role-playing gaming are 'Thinking in Context' and interacting with other players. Combining these both demonstrates the importance of Characters in the game. I can't imagine behaviours of such, being worthwhile except for the emotional reactions they engender in the participants. That means that there must be some degree of identification (Ron's point) and human nature (Walt's point) or else you've got boring characters acting in alien fashion, not terribly engaging except perhaps clinically.

What both these opinions miss is the 'larger context.' It is the 'rest of the game' that lends both the evocative and human behaviours greater impact. (I might go so far as to suggest this is why there are relatively few games that don't include 'epic' abilities far beyond those of reality; it lends to a bigger impact.) This is where the "interacting" makes all the difference; it is also where the explicit structures (or implicit, in some games) come into play. Designs attempt to 'converge with reality' so as to give credence to the humanity and emotional accessibility of the characters' actions. Systems that are 'more realistic' not only support, but also defend, each participant's sensation of consistency and therefore theoretically to human behaviour that is more likely emotionally accessible to real humans.

So that is what I see 'realism' is both for and why it is attempted. If we could set aside the illusion that 'twice the realism' will result in 'twice the accessibility,' and take a more epicurean approach to "design for effect," I think we could create games that are more appealing than their 'more realistic' cousins.

Oh, and for the record, to me Scattershot is the most realistic....

Fang Langford

Ralph raises some excellent points; I hope I can add to them.

Ultimately, all role playing games are fantasy role playing games. We are imagining that we are other people in other places doing other things; the entire process is the realization of the unreal. It is essential to the concept that we have mentally stepped outside the bounds of reality.

The question seems to be, at what points have we done this?

I happen to think there are a lot of very realistic aspects to Multiverser. To identify a few:

• Skill improvement comes from practice, not in any way influenced by "adventuring" time or experience; it is easier to improve a skill by sitting at home going over it than by relying on it in a crisis, although the latter can also help..• Potential damage from falling increases geometrically with distance, while actual damage is still randomized. Every once in a while someone does fall an incredible distance and manages to survive, usually because they landed the right way on the right surface, but the farther you fall the less likely this is.• It's easier for a person who understands later developments in technology to go back and fill in the gaps in his understanding of earlier ones than for someone with a strong grasp of primitive technologies to make the leap to more advanced ones; in the same way, it's easier for people who have mastered difficult body skills to master simpler ones than the other way around. It's easier to go from jet engines to steam engines than the other way.


On the other hand, the core premises of the game include:

• You died and awoke in another world, and from now on you'll never age but every time you die you'll awaken in another world.• Everything that anyone has ever imagined doing is possible, at least in some worlds.• Every world that anyone has ever imagined existing does exist.

It's kind of difficult to claim that a game is "realistic" when those are the core premises. No one believes them, really. They make for a great game background.

Every game does this, to one degree or another: it mixes the fantastic elements with the more credible ones. As gamers, we accept the fantastic elements as the bases for what we're doing, and rely on the credible ones to provide the familiarity we need to know how to function within those worlds. In one game, we'll accept that wizards can throw fire from their fingers, as long as arrows behave properly. In another game, we'll accept that a skilled archer can be as deadly as a skilled rifleman, as long as the feeling of the old west is captured. Again, we'll accept that spaceships can travel interstellar distances in mere days or hours and that intelligent life forms interact throughout the galaxy and even perhaps interbreed, as long as heroes win fistfights and villains fall for clever bluffs and ruses (wait, was there a "real" part to that one?).

The point is that we mix reality and fantasy in every game. It's the whole point. So it isn't a matter of which game is most real, but of which game does the best job of accurately emulating those aspects of the real world which you think are necessary for it to seem real. If you have no problem with elves in your reality, or time machines, or telekinesis, then they don't detract from the "reality". The question isn't whether the game is real, but whether it's unreal in any way that bothers you personally.

--M. J. Young

Somehow I managed to post after reading only the first page; I'll beg that I'm tired, and should have been asleep hours ago. There's a lot of good stuff on the second page, particularly Ron and Walt on believability of characters--but I think what I said does fit with that. I'm posting again to replay to

what Mike Holmes wrote: Traveller has touted it's "egalitarian" treatment of females as both a step forward in Feminism, and a realistic result of a futuristic world. Is the "box reduction" made manifest in that game a pro or a con? I'm pretty sure that you'll say it's a bad thing. While setting realists like myself would argue the opposite.

The most relaistic game will be the game with which you and your
players are most comfortable playing. If you realy want a game to
be realistic, then you will make it realistic through the way you
behave and the choices you make during play.

It doesn't matter how realistic a setting or rules are, if they don't
suit your style of play and preferences in game mechanics. Any
disparity will simply result in frustration.


Simon Hibbs

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

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

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

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

Weeble.

MJ,

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

Fang (and others with related points),

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

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

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

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

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

Mike

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

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

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

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

Arrrgh ...

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

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

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Arrrgh ...

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

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

Best,
Ron

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

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

Fang wrote: I suppose.

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

Marco wrote: ...what is the Lumpey Principle?

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

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

Mike Holmes wrote: MJ,

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Johannes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Cpl Ferro

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

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

Dear Valamir:

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

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

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



Cpl Ferro

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

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

But even if that does occur Jack it does not mean that mechanics and realism are completely unrelated which was my point. So yes, your point is 100% correct. Just completely not relevant to the discussion.

M. J. Young wrote: Perhaps, though, this actually puts it back on topic. Is it realistic to suggest that in the future there will be no gender roles and no gender distinctions, or not? Now, I can play in a game where gender distinctions aren't seriously emphasized, or in which religion is never mentioned--but when that starts to become a focus, when it is emphasized that gender distinctions have been eliminated and religion has faded from humanity, my disbelief suspenders snap...