I've seen and read a lot of posts on various RPG forums and mailing lists, where the designer of a new RPG states that they wanted the design to be "realistic" and have maximum "realism". Unfortunately, when I or others point out various defects in the design, usually the designer retracts the "realistic"/"realism" claim and falls back to "this is how I want the game to be".

I get the impression that "realistic"/"realism" is really in the eye of the beholder! :)

So what is "Realistic"? Is it really just imaginary? :)

Well, here's what I thought off the top of my head... And it's so simple-minded, I can't imagine it's going to be of any use to someone, but...

Realistic is actual life. The stuff and motion of actual life.

Anything short of that, and you're in trouble.

Christopher

M. J. Young wrote (in another thread):

All of this is Lumpley Principle: we have agreed to the content of the shared imaginary space.

Andrew Martin wrote: After all, what's realistic to one person who is deeply religious and believes in the power of prayer, is pure delusion to another person who believes in the scientific method.

Actually, I feel there is an aspect of realism which is understated, tyhat is, it is necessary for the players to engage with the game.

For any creative agende, the game must be MORE THAN merely an exercise in mental masturbation; it must be relevant to the participants. And seeing as those participants are real human beings, there must be a baseline relevance to those real human beings. The content and subject of the game must not be so alien to those humans that the apply appears to be irrelvant to the human condition - else it carries little or no interest or value.

One could argue that a game system is "realistic" if it doesn't violate the sense of realism in the players.

So if a game has it that prayer (for example) doesn't work in a modern setting, this would be realistic in a group of scientist players, yet this same game would greatly violate the sense of realism for a group of religious players.

Similarly for things like adding a skill number to a attributes number in a realistic game. For someone who's young or not knowledgeable about the real world, this would seem realistic in a game as it seems to reflect talent and skill, yet, from my point of view, it's greatly unrealistic.

Then let's say this example game is revised to cope with my knowledge, and we check it for realism, and yes now it passes my tests for realism (it no longer snaps my suspenders of disbelief). If I and a teacher from the school I work at, play this this game, my teacher friend might say: "hey! This part isn't realistic! Skills don't develop like that because... (blah, blah, blah!)". :) By listening to my teacher friend and leaning more about how skills develop, the game changes back from realistic to unrealistic. Or does my sense of realism (for this game) change? :)

Interesting timing, I just wrote a short essay on this subject, and was considering posting it here to see what the Forge-ites thought about it.

This may be a slightly different angle than what you were expecting, but the thesis of my essay was that the re-creation of "reality" is really secondary to creating a "believable" game world. That is, I think players/ desigers are really trying to create believablity in their games rather than true "realism." I also argue that "believability" is based on logic rather than physics/ whatever of the real world.

I think the basic thesis of my essay wouldn't seem foreign to people here, though I don't know if the concept was ever expressed in the terms I used.

Anyway, here's the essay, be warned that it was written for a DnD site.
-------------

Realism and Believability

The argument of realism vs. abstraction is one that pops up all the time, not just on this forum, but on various RPG forums across the web. The realism camp argus that DnD isn't realistic (most of the time this is in regards to HP and combat, but there are other mechanic disputes that could be classsified as realism-based), while the anti-realism camp argues that DnD is abstract and not meant to fully represent reality. The point of this essay is not to argue either for or against realism per se, but to rather suggest a shift in the discussion.

I believe people who argue for realism have missed the point a bit. This is not to say they are wrong, but I don't think realism is really what they're looking for. Realism is a complicated and messy thing, and - as the anti-realism folk are quick to point out - the real world doesn't have magic or dragons or other fantasy elements. True realism also tends to dampen dramatic or heroic effects, something many gamers look for in RPG's. So what is it that the realism crowd is looking for if it's not realsim? I propose that it's not realism these people should argue for, but rather believability.

The difference between realism and believability is subtle, but I think it goes to the core of what these individuals are looking for. I think the realism crowd realizes they aren't looking for true realism. If someone wanted to play real life they wouldn't be playing DnD. But these people just have a hard time believing in certain aspects of the game, whether its the HP or combat system or whatever, and this becomes a distraction in their gaming experience.

So what defines believability versus realism? Realism, obviously, is based in real-world physics. If it doesn't exist in or if it doesn't work the same way as it does in the real world it isn't realistic. Believability, however, is based in real-world logic. This means that for a mechanic to be believable, it's underlying logic must work in the real world. Is this just realism with a different name? No, the differenence is physics versus logic. Realism is bound by the confines of the real world, and is thus fairly rigid. The rule of believablity is logic, and thus is inherent more flexible than realism. A believable mechanic can break the laws of physics if its still logical. However, the basis for such logic must be found in the real world. This means that a believable game system will be pretty close to realistic, though it may be exaggerated or may contain (unrealistic) fantasy elements.

One issue with the idea of believability, however, is that believability is inherently subjective. Different people will have different definitions of what they are willing to believe. Thus switching the "realism" discussions into "believability" discussions will not eliminate the arguments, but it will get both sides arguing about the same things. At present, the realism camp discusses the unrealistic elements of DnD, while the anti-realism camp discusses DnD's abstractive nature, two different (but not mutaully exclusive) concepts. Under the concpet of believability, both parties can get together and discuss what's really at the heart of most DnD arguments - simple differences in personal opinion.

When game system yields probabilities close to the (actual or subjective) frequencies one would observe in real life in the same circumstances ?

Hello,

I'm afraid this is a broad-spectrum smattering of older threads, but I really do recommend reviewing them, for this thread's discussion to be maximally productive.

Purpose of rules - this thread is mainly about GM authority, but the realism issue crops up subtly more than once, especially on page 3
Hard Time (prison RPG)
Simulationist reality and Narrativist reality
Transparency again - again, this is not directly about realism as a term, but everything in the thread relates to the topic
Playing The Riddle of Steel (a little)
The psychology of combat
Failure=Advancement - a good example of avoiding the realism-debate for purposes of a better discussion
The FooFoo Factor
What is the most realistic RPG? - a seminal thread. I strongly recommend not posting to this (current) thread until you really read and process this older one, especially Ralph's (Valamir's) post at the end of page 1. I also recommend skipping over my objections to the issue of suspension-of-disbelief, as it kind of derailed the discussion.
"Realism" valued in both G and S?
Realism in RPGs
Realism in RPGs II
Using realism in RPGs part 2

Best,
Ron

Well, let's get a little perspective here. I agree that realism has a lot of grey area -- but I don't think it is totally arbitrary for each person. Among reasonably sane people, there is a lot of basics that are agreed on.

Ralph, you yourself distinguish abstraction and playability as being different issues from realism (i.e. your #2 and #3 are different than #1). I would agree with this. We can talk about realism, abstraction, and playability separately. Obviously they interrelate, but all aspects of gaming interrelate -- i.e. character relates to setting, and color influences character, and so forth. That doesn't make them invalid to talk about.

Valamir wrote: Two experts in the field who agree 100% on what constitutes "realistic" who decide to model a game on the same source material can come up with a game that each considers to be the "perfectly realistic model" but which the other would consider "unrealistic" simply because of the different priorities they placed on what to model in detail and what to abstract.

Valamir wrote: What this tells me, is that even if you jump through hoops of fire and pour through the library stacks looking for original sources, one man's "realistic" is another man's "unrealistic"

That I completely agree with John. The ultimate point of what I was trying to say is

At which point it becomes completely pointless to discuss as an issue unto itself and winds up largely serving as a red herring issue in discussions.

Valamir wrote: "Realism" discussions just become so much stuff and nonsense. Its a loaded term that is best left alone.

Research into "authentic physics" or "historical accuracy" or "internal consistancy" is all good. But calling any of these "realistic" is IMO a complete waste of time.

John Kim wrote: *snip*

Well, no. The experts would presumably debate over the preferred level of abstraction, not over the realism per se. Two systems can both be equally realistic even if they are not identical. This is something I dealt with all the time in my physics work. There were different approaches used for simulation depending on the circumstances. We had debates over what to do, but we never looked at each other and threw up our hands saying, "Reality doesn't exist."

*snip*

Oh well, I just lean on my favourite two words in this situation: verisimilitude and authenticity, with maybe the odd mention of plausibility and the willing suspension of disbelief. Most "realism" debates are actually about these...

A lot of this got covered in the "What's the most Realistic Game?" post that Ron referenced above. Don't let the title fool you, it was all about "what makes an RPG realistic" and what that can be boken down into. A lot of which is getting recreated here. All of those threads are good references. Until we start coming to some sort of agreement on these issues, we're going to have this thread every four months or so til doomsday.

Mike

Hello,

Mike's right. Am I correct in inferring that very few, if any of you, are actually reading those threads I listed previously?

If that's correct, then bluntly, you're functionally spamming this thread, no matter how carefully and articulately, or how heartfelt, or with how much good will.

I'd really like to see more evidence of considering the points made at great length and effort by others in the past.

Best,
Ron

Well, since Ron had posted no less than thirteen links to previous threads, we can only ask Andrew, did they answer your questions. If not, what are your questions?

More an effort in practicallity. A scatter shot of half a dozen multipage(?) links is going to loose me focus on the question more than it'll provide any insight (just getting around the derailing parts of multiple multip page posts is more than my reading/absorbing-fu can manage).

Still, if thems the rules, that's it. I'll know in future that when too many links are given and in my particular case I think I can't chew on that much fat, so to speak, I wont post in that thread as I'm not considered qualified. Not a sooky post, just outlining how there are rules, and then there are personal practical considerations. And of course I know I'm a guest here so that's why I come to the no post conclusion, which favours the rules.

Hello,

I need to clarify a bit, it seems.

Clearly, no one can stop anyone from posting without reading the threads I've recommended. Nor is doing so really a "rule" in Forge terms, not at all.

My preferred response to my post from folks - now that I think more about it - would be this: slow down. Read some of the threads, skim about, see when they're from and what they addressed. If you find a gem or two (I indicated the most important one), cool.

Then post to this one with a specific eye toward Andrew's question. There's no hurry. These threads don't disappear onto page four in a day.

If everyone or most people do this, a great discussion can occur, nice and leisurely, no pressure to pound out response-response-response.

I posted in the first place because "realism," like other terms like balance and story, is nothing but a tar baby unless we all agree to work with the insights of the past and build upon them.

Callan, a quick note to you: what's this about being a "guest" here? You're signed on; you're all good, just like anyone else.

Best,
Ron

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Well, since Ron had posted no less than thirteen links to previous threads, we can only ask Andrew, did they answer your questions. If not, what are your questions?

Emily Care wrote: So what is my definition of realistic? An impossible dream. We have to make do with coming to concensus about what results are most consistent with real world outcomes. A completely different application of the term that I would find useful too is "realism". This would be analogous to Hollywood realism in films--actions not necessarily having outcomes likely in a real-world situation, but having the feeling of truth.

Well said. I think by defining the sort of behavior that you're modeling, that you cover half the distance.

What about the whole "front end" vs. "Back end" modeling issue, however? Does the metagame appearance of system pertain to realism at all? That is, some people would say that if you roll a die to hit and then calculate damage, that this is more realistic than rolling the die and then deciding from the result that the character shot the other. In it's most recognizable form, FatE vs. FitM. Also "effect first" mechanics vs. "in-game first" mechanics.

A similar but potentiually different axis is the one that goes from Task Resolution to Conflict Resolution. The level of detail that's resolved by each roll. Does that relate to realism (because people will say it does)?

There are other issues as well.

What I propose, given some of the feedback on the previous page is that we think of Realism as a topic umbrella, and then define some unique terms underneath that umbrella (using some of the terms from this thread and others). For example, I think that Abstraction, as in Level of Abstraction, is a great term to discuss how much detail is looked at in each resolution - it's RW meaning and the meaning here are close enough to use the term without alteration, I think (much better than my Detailism). There is the behavior mimicing that Andrew notes, which could be called something like Past Emulation, Present Emulation, Fantasy Emulation as the need arises. Ralph, what are the terms for the modeling modes, front end and back end?

Does this make sense? Can we proceed if we agree to some definitions?

Mike

Here's some more food for thought. Author Robert McKee uses the term "actuality" in conection with "reality." As in a film must be realistic even if he bears no resemblence to actuality.
Reality is the laws of nature set up by the author/filmmaker/etc.
Actuality is the real world as we know it. Me sitting in my living room typing this, you reading this on your screen, etc.

McKee cites Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as an example of reality being different from actuality. I get a little more specific here:

Eddie and Roger are handcuffed together, which is inconvenient to say the least. Eddie finds a hacksaw and attempts to saw through the cuff, but the crate he's bracing against is rickity. "Try to hold the crate steady," says Eddie. Roger slips his hand out of the cuffs and grips the crate. "Like this?" Eddie shoots him a dirty look. "You mean you could have slipped out of those cuffs anytime?" "No," replies Roger, "only when it was funny."

This is the reality of the movie. A toon can do pretty much anything so long as it's funny. Now imagine that isn't a rule anymore. A toon can do anything. But he still doesn't slip out of the cuffs until that moment. People in the audience wonder "If he can slip out of those cuffs at any time, then why didn't he instead of waiting until much later?"

Plenty of people had commented on Phantom Menace "Why don't the Jedi always raise their hands like that? They wave their hands and the robots fall down. Do that all the time. Fighting is dangerous."

So a movie, story, game, etc has a reality which may or may not bear any resemblence to actuality. Realistic is maintaining this reality.

ADD: Way I seem it, a lot of the discussion about "realism" in RPGs is because of confusing reality with actuality and vise-versa

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Here's some more food for thought. Author Robert McKee uses the term "actuality" in conection with "reality." As in a film must be realistic even if he bears no resemblence to actuality.
Reality is the laws of nature set up by the author/filmmaker/etc.
Actuality is the real world as we know it. Me sitting in my living room typing this, you reading this on your screen, etc.

McKee cites Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as an example of reality being different from actuality. I get a little more specific here:

Eddie and Roger are handcuffed together, which is inconvenient to say the least. Eddie finds a hacksaw and attempts to saw through the cuff, but the crate he's bracing against is rickity. "Try to hold the crate steady," says Eddie. Roger slips his hand out of the cuffs and grips the crate. "Like this?" Eddie shoots him a dirty look. "You mean you could have slipped out of those cuffs anytime?" "No," replies Roger, "only when it was funny."

This is the reality of the movie. A toon can do pretty much anything so long as it's funny. Now imagine that isn't a rule anymore. A toon can do anything. But he still doesn't slip out of the cuffs until that moment. People in the audience wonder "If he can slip out of those cuffs at any time, then why didn't he instead of waiting until much later?"

Plenty of people had commented on Phantom Menace "Why don't the Jedi always raise their hands like that? They wave their hands and the robots fall down. Do that all the time. Fighting is dangerous."

So a movie, story, game, etc has a reality which may or may not bear any resemblence to actuality. Realistic is maintaining this reality.

You can play Dick Braggan: Thesaurus Hunter if you want.

Personally, I see it like this, reality refers to the reality of the movie world (or game world). This reality may be many things but whatever it is, it should be consistent.

What I had hoped you came away from my previous post with was a vocabular for differentiating the reality of the game world or the actuality of real life. Thus avoiding the Zelda II Life Life problem by calling both reality. And, like I said in the addition, I believe that most problems with discussions about reality in RPG circles is due to this.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, in Zelda II Adventures of Link for the Nintendo Entertainment System, you had the RPG-like stat Life, which basically determined how much damage you took when hit. Damage was tracked on a red bar, called Life. You could replenish this with a magic spell, called Life. You also had a reserve of Lives. This last portion was less confusing since it would often be refered to in the plural or as Extra Life. However, you could say with accuracy, if not clairity "You should raise Life so you won't lose as much Life when hit. If your Life gets low, use Life to raise your Life because if you run out of Life you'll lose a Life"

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: This is the reality of the movie. A toon can do pretty much anything so long as it's funny. Now imagine that isn't a rule anymore. A toon can do anything. But he still doesn't slip out of the cuffs until that moment. People in the audience wonder "If he can slip out of those cuffs at any time, then why didn't he instead of waiting until much later?"

I took Ron's advice and I looked through the old threads and the new thread. Quite a bit of what is written is well thought out and evocative. From all of this I personally have drawn 3 conclusions:

1) Everyone is Right.

2) We have yet to define realism in the context of the question(s) we are really asking.

3) So what?

Before anyone is offended, let me tackle number 3, first.

Is Chess a game? Is chess fun? Is chess realistic? Number one is indisputable I think. Number two is a matter of preference. Number three can be answered in many ways. You can make an argument, I am sure, that Chess is a very realistic model of tacitcs and strategy. The point would be why? The purpose of Chess is not be realistic but to be a competetive game.

The same can be said of an RPG. What is the point of defining "realism"? Its like trying to define "Dark" or "Crunchy" or any other adjective that you choose to try and redefine for the basis of gaming. IS realistic a goal of the game "To make a realistic game based on the lives of Navy Seals." or is it a marketing ploy, "Play my game with realistic combat!"?

So I am not sure why we are bothering to even try and define "realism" or "realistic". What do they mean and what relevance do they have to our game designs? Is it something that will degrade our abilities to make games if we never find out how to corral it?

On Point 2, if we are going to go full speed ahead ad infinitum with the discourse on realism, what is our objective? To define Realism itself in the context of the RPG or define realism as a TOOL for use in designing RPGs? Is "realism" supposed to be "True to life" or "Internally Consistent" as Jack Spencer was I think getting at.

What does it mean if I say "This game is realistic" or "This combat is realistic."? Is it based on real world physics or real world perceptions of phsyics? I shoot Bob. Bob dies. Does it really need to be more True to Life than that?

Lets take a vector / phsyics based space war game. "Realistic movement and combat!" Stuff that would make Niven / Pournelle proud. Hard core Sci Fi. Is that realistic? True to life? We know physics true, but can you tell me that in 100 years we will NOT have a warp drive or something else? No. You cannot. We know how naval wars are fougth and we extrapolate what we "know" of combat into space. Yet not one person on this planet has EVER fought a space battle nor likely will any time soon.

I have been in a fight for my life before, but I have never been under mortar fire. So should I avoid military rpgs because I cannot give you a realistic feel for what its like to be under mortar fire? Of course not, thats silly.

For point #1, I think it is safe to say that many if not most or all of the points have a good degree of correctness. Many of the points are well made and relevant. Yet "realism" remains one of the unanswered Grails in RPG design. Its as difficult to define it incorrectly as it is to define the concpet correctly.

Finally I wll come back to "So What?". As a mental excersise it is certianly thought provoking but its all very ethereal. When people are not 100% sure what we sense IS indeed real; when knowledge of many of our concepts is still spotty and theoretical; when we are not even sure why we want a game to be realistic in the first place, then there seems to be little point in banging our heads.

In my own opinion the quest for realism is far too broad. Its the subsets we are searching for. Combat that gives us True to Life or True to Hollywood results. Space travel that conforms to theortetical or theatrical norms. A pursuit of 100% internal consitency regardless of the physics model used.

The danger of pursuing Realism is a tendancy to define it with itself.

"Whats realistic? Well you know, its realistic when its like, real."

We could be discussing it for a very long time to come.

Sean

It's a tough topic, so why bother? "So what?"

So that when people say that something isn't realistic that we can narrow down what they really mean and be able to fix the problem (or to say that we're not interested in supporting that sort of realism, and why). It seems to be an important analytical tool to me.

You'll have to forgive me if I drive on anyhow.

More importantly, I think we're close to figuring it out. I think that what we have here are four or five separate considerations. If we can define these, then we can stop talking uselessly about Realism, and talk about what we really mean.

Mike

Ok Mike, so what your saying is that defining Realism/ Realistic IS an important tool for game design and that its relevant to what is going here at the Forge? It is certianly very important to many people here and I hope no one thinks I was belittling that. (Apologies if it came off that way.)

Let me give an example:

I am Hungry. I tell you IA m Hungry. What does that mean? DO I want something to eat? Is my body craving a certian mineral? In fact its likely that I am really thirsty, or so I read on the internet. In any case you ask me:

"What do you want to eat?"

"I dunno I am hungry."

"Want some fries?"

"No."

"Want some pizza?'

"Pizza is ok."

"How about a steak?"

"Yeah yeah! I want a steak"

The process, as I see it, is similar to with regard to Realism. We all know we want it, but none of us are sure exactly what we want. OR we ARE sure of what we want but we are expressing in the terms of Realism.

In the above, if I had said "I want steak." You could say sure, lets haev steak. Its implied that I am in hungry in that case.

"I want bullets that do damage on a model similar to the real world." That you can work with. Its implied that you want something "realistic" with regard to the real world physics of bullets.

Just a thought


Sean

I'll agree with Mike here.

I've found value in chasing down definitions if only to completely prove that the term in question is, if not useless, not at all what people thought. It removed the term from its previous usage, and forced everyone to reconsider what they thought they were talking about.

Illustration: My "When People Say Railroading..." thread over on RPG.net. By the time we were done it was finally clear that "railroading" was impossible to define outside of "When it happens I don't like it." Different people have different expectations of what is and is not permissible in GM / Player relationships and shared authority.

This, oddly, but without explicit defition, led to a what could only be called a discussion about Social Contract and Creative Agendas. Now, no one used the terms usually used here, but that's what the conversation ended up being about. So, we remmoved the idea that there's this thing called "railroading" that everyone understands as this one thing in an RPG session, and re-defined the issue as one of: "Well, how do all the players at the table want to play? Clearly different people gain pleasure some kinds of play, and displeasure from others. That's the problem."

The same thing might happen here. I believe Realism and Realisitc are bugaboo words - null sets that hide the bigger, we aren't aware, don't talk about that issues behind them.

Christopher

ADGBoss wrote: We know physics [is] true...

Ron Edwards in another thread wrote: (Scientists are sloppy about saying "accepting the alternate" sometimes. Don't let that fool you. There is no acceptance, just rejecting or not rejecting the null.)

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

ADGBoss wrote: We know physics [is] true...

Do we?

People also used to believe in the four humors and other things, including whole pantheons of gods.

Ron Edwards in another thread wrote: (Scientists are sloppy about saying "accepting the alternate" sometimes. Don't let that fool you. There is no acceptance, just rejecting or not rejecting the null.)

see Falsifying GNS


My point being here, not to be a dick or anything, is that we don't know Physics to be true. We just haven't rejected yet. We may doso tomorrow. We may never reject it.

This is part of the problem with discussion realism in terms of actuality. We do not have a commonly accepted view of actuality. There are still people who think the world is flat.

Again, not to be a dick, but this is one of the problems with realism, when actuality cannot always be agreed on.

ADGBoss wrote: In short, and correct me if I am wrong in this interpretation Jack, you are saying Realistic cannot be defined when no one can truly agree on what is real or as you say, actual.

Makes some sense but I think this is useful in regard to the fact that perhaps what we need is a baseline for reality. Define the baseline and you have a place to work from.

Ron Edwards wrote: *snip*
Callan, a quick note to you: what's this about being a "guest" here? You're signed on; you're all good, just like anyone else.

Best,
Ron

I don't usually do posts like this, but--

Callan, that was an excellent summary.

Thanks.

--M. J. Young

Hello,

Not only was that an excellent summary, Callan, but it's also a fine place to call this thread closed now, especially in combination with Christopher's point above.

Dictatorial on my part? Perhaps. But today is a good day for everyone to back off and let their fingers cool.

Best,
Ron