The Forge Archives

Hi,

After teching Russian classics to my students I came to think about how relism in litterature has been defined in criticism and what is realism in general. I think that in literary discussion the word carries at least two meanings:

Realism 1: Representation of the real world (of one's own society and time). Opposed to the romance and the like.

Realism 2: The idea that language and literature can represent reality in an exact and objective manner. Opposed by modernism and postmodernism.

Realism 1 and 2 combine in most litterature that is considered realistic (Dostoevski, Balzac and the like).

Now, I think that these definitions can be usefull in RPG discussion also. When talking about mechanics realism can be defined in similar manner like this:

Realism 1: The system tries to simulate thigs and processes that are similar to the real world. The world simulated is in some regard very like our native reality. Gritty combat systems, rules for infections etc. belong here. Realism 1 is opposed by cinematic systems and the like.

Realism 2: The idea that the mechanics represent accurately the laws of the world and that therefore everything can be mechanized - and virtually is! Virtually a scientist native to the game world could by empiric research develop a theory of physics that would be the same as the game system. Rules cannot be ignored without changing the setting. Setting is sort of produced by the mechanics. I don't think this is so much system spesific than player spesific. I have found some Realism 2 in N. Robin Crosby's Harn products (Godstone article) and it's implicit in many player's attitudes.

Realism 2 is opposed by players who think that the mechanics are just an estimation of the world's laws - an aid to the simulation that actually takes place in the imagination - and that they should be ignored if they violate the group's idea of the setting ("use common sense" patches in rulesbooks). Setting is considered to exist independently of the mechanics. I suppose this is the most common view out there.

Maybe if we regognize these two senses of realism, we can use the word in a meaningfull way and without the citation marks ("). Do you find this definition of realism is inclusive enough or should it be more exclusive? Is it a usefull definition to you?

Hey Johannes,

I have been meaning to bring up this topic for some time. It goes along nicely with my rant about accuracy vs. precision. C. S. Lewis spends a chapter talking about presentational realism (#2) and realism of content (#1) in his book, An Experiment in Criticism, so it was clearly important to him.

What I find interesting is how what we consider realistic in content is frequently as unrealistic as what we consider cinematic or romantic. For example, you state that "gritty" combat is realistic, which it might be. However, many gritty combat systems go very overboard--even a hint of violence and people start dying like cheap extras in an action movie--yet most people would agree "that's how it is."

Later,
Grant

I think that's a very interesting perspective. My initial thought is that propoenents of Realsim 2 have often not thought things out deeply (All of history would be different if guns were only as lethal as they are in basic 3rd Edition Hero).

-Marco

Hi Grant,

I haven't read Lewis's paper but I guess that it is talking pretty much the same thing as I. However I would say that precision is more a result of realism 2 thinking than realism 2 itself. In realism 2 it si thought that language can represent reality in a "objective" way. I think a system can be realistic 2 even if it is not detailed. It is more of an attitude than feature of a system.

Quote from: ThreeGee

What I find interesting is how what we consider realistic in content is frequently as unrealistic as what we consider cinematic or romantic. For example, you state that "gritty" combat is realistic, which it might be. However, many gritty combat systems go very overboard--even a hint of violence and people start dying like cheap extras in an action movie--yet most people would agree "that's how it is."

I'm not sure if I understand you here. Are you saying that gritty combat systems can be even more lethal than real combat, therefore becoming unrealistic in the realism 1 sense. If so I agree with you - usually unrealistic means that things are too easy but it can of course mean also that they are too hard.

One good example are first level characters in rolemaster. They don't have many skills (but the system has "skillified" nearly everything, is this precicions here;-) and their bonuses in the skills are very low when compared to the general scale of the system. This means that they almost never succeed in anything but routine actions. This is funny because in RM you level up mainly by taking part in combat and killing things which means that most of the population of the game world is at level 1. In realism 2 thinking this would mean that few if any things are done well in the in-game society.

Hi Marco,

Quote from: MarcoI think that's a very interesting perspective. My initial thought is that propoenents of Realsim 2 have often not thought things out deeply (All of history would be different if guns were only as lethal as they are in basic 3rd Edition Hero).

-Marco

I don't understand you completely here. Could you please elaborate on your thoughts? I'm especially interested on how you see the relation of Realism 2 and Realism 1 here.

Wow, I've written and chucked three essays on this topic so far. What I come down to is that I have no idea what the differences between the two are as you've described them, Johannes.

At first I wanted to think that it was just the old comment about how a particular game's reality does not have to match ours. That Realism 2 was adherence to some realism that wasn't like our real world. But that just doesn't fit your description.

Then I thought that maybe it had something to do with Realism 2 being about the system actually being not so much a simulation, but actually underlying the game's universe in-game. That the mechanics were not metagame in Realism 2. But his just doesn't happen. Nobody goes for this. Maybe in Puppetland, or Over the Edge would characters become aware that the mechanics exist as such. Not even that they would realize that they were in an RPG, but just that the world worked by the mechanics of the game. It's just that all games are so simple compared to reality. The "detail" of the game is provided by the players, and as such would fail the Scientific Method. So we can't go for Realism 2 in any world where the scientific method exists.

See the problem? Resolution systems themselves are almost always Metagame there to help create the in-game reality.

So I'm guessing that I've got it all wrong. Can you try again to describe Realism 2 (and one if neccessary) so that my poor old head can see what you're saying? Because I want this to make sense so that we can take the quotes off of Realism.

It's a great topic, I'm jut not getting it. And not for lack of trying. :-)

Mike

Hi Mike,

Realism 2 that I'm talking about is not (at least not usually) part of game systems. It's an attitude of a player.

For the sake of this argument lets imagine a system where skill rolls succeed 50% of the time. To make a pair of good jeans a tailor character has to succeed in a skill roll.

Now a player who believes in Realism 2 will say that 50% of the in-game jeans are not good because 50% of the skill rolls fail. Opponent of realism 2 will say that the game mechanics are just an aid to the simulation (or representation) of the game world and that they are used just to bring some randomness to the game - not the world. Therefore you cannot determine how many of the in-game jeans are good on the grounds of the system. Opponents of Realism 2 do not assume that dice are rolled every time somebody in the game world makes a pair of jeans (which is implicit to Realism 2 player). The system might yield good jeans 50% of the time but 50% of the in-game jeans are not assumed to be bad because of that.

Proponent of Realism 2 sees the system as an absolutely accurate picture of the laws of the game world (or in an extreme case as _the_ laws of the game world). Players who see systems like this are usualy not satisfied with systems that are not very detailed because they think that this makes the game-world too simple (and unrealistic in Realism 1 sense). This explains the old "detail is realism" line of thought.

Realism 2 is similar to the methodology of literary realism. It was thought that language and literature can represent reality objectively and accurately. More detailed works were better because they gave a fuller picture. Where a realist 2 novel is a "picture" of the world, realist 2 in RPGs is the system as an accurate picture of the laws of the game world.

Usually people do not openly admit that they believe in Realism 2 but it is implicit in situations that are like the one I described above. It is quite rare in rulesbooks but it exists. Detail can be a sign of it but not necesserily. The only open statement of Realism 2 in a rulesbook I know of is in the HW/HM Godstones article I mentioned above. To paraphrase the statement it goes about like this:

Godstones a portals to other dimensions. When you enter another dimension the natural laws (game rules) change. Forgotten Realms is one of the worlds you can access via godstones. Its natural laws are bizarre.

Realism 1 means simply that the more the (implicit or explicit)* game world is like our own world the more realistic the game is. Kethira (Harnworld) is very realistic in this sense when compared to Forgotten Realms and the like.

*By implicit game world I don't mean a spesific setting but a set of assumptions about the setting which can be found in the game.

Ah!  You get this all the time when you hang out with Ars Magica geeks.  The actual results of the longevity potion + aging rules don't line up with the canonical ages of "old" wizards, for instance.  Who's right, the mechanics or the flavor text?  Which should be changed (if either)?  The type 1 realist says that the mechanics should change, if you really think it'd be worth the bother, which it probably wouldn't.  The type 2 realist says that the setting should change, because we know how longevity potions + aging work, and there hasn't passed enough time from the Founding to now for any competent wizard to have died.

And don't get them started about how Christianity has to change to accommodate the Realm Interactions Table.  Dude they never shut up.

(No offense to any Ars Magica geeks who might read this.  You're my people, really.)

-Vincent

OK, I get it. Realism 2 is what many self-identifying "Immersionist" Sim players are after. The feeling that this sort of player gets when the system arbitrarily provides results (no additions from the players that are not called for by the system) that seem internally consistent with the vision of the game world.

That gives us two groups, actually in terms of Realism 2. There are the hardcore realism 2 folks who I think have things wrong. These are the folks that would, if asked to extrapolate world history, would do like Marco suggests, and use errors and all to think of what the world must therefore be like.

Another example of these players are the folks on The GURPS newsgroup who debate endlessly on how the mechanics mean that certain things must be true in the game world. OTOH, most of these players fall into a second group who are really saying, I think, that they like to look at the rules as physics so that they can find out what's wrong with it in terms of being a simulation. That is, they understand that it's imperfect, but they want to improve it anyhow, and have it be as good as possible. They would only extrapolate when and where they felt that the simulation was solid in play.

The first group strikes me, as it apparently does Marco, as wrong. That is, they can't ever be satisfied. They simply haven't thought it through enough yet to realize that there is no perfect Sim. And that extrapolating everything from imperfect models is just not effective. I can kinda see it in terms of an ideal, or a thought experiment, but I can't see this leading to functional play.

Whereas the second group is quite functional. Lots of these people are just into exploration of the system for kicks, and like to see what the system can do for them.

Fortunately, I think that the first group is quite small.

So, does that give us Realist 1, Realist 2.1, and Realist 2.2? Actually, I'd call Realism 1, Realism, and I'd call Realism 2, Detailism (with the dysfunctional version having a "Radical" prefix). After all, the "detailist" would be just as satisfied with a detailed description of something completely unrealistic, no? Only the Realist/Detailist want's both something like the real world, and it provided in detail (they wouldn't like a game like Court of Nine Chambers, not because it's not detailed effectively, but because it's not Realistic at all; in fact it's specifically Surrealistic).

Making any sense?

Mike

I quite like this categorization, Johannes, although I do have one minor quibble (I'll get back to that in a minute).  I think it is important to recognize that neither category can be absolute, and further that there must be some sort of spectrum within each, but I think that was implicit in what you said in the first place.  

Thus within Realism 2, for example:

You have one extreme at which folks want an absolute 1:1 relationship between rules and laws, such that if a character has a 50% Make Jeans roll, that means that it is actually true that every such person in the game-world actually fails to make jeans half the time.  This person is likely to want to push in one of two directions: either the rules should be extended to take into account the greater subtlety of the universe (for each 10% above 50 you roll, the jeans get shoddier, until at 50% of the skill above the skill number (=75) you actually do not get a pair of pants), or the universe should be carefully structured that the necessary granularity of the mechanics has precise implications in the universe (necessarily a bit fantastic).  Whether a person on this extreme of R.2 recognizes that this form of simulationism cannot ever be completed is a separate matter.

At the opposite extreme, there is the idea that the mechanics require a necessary fudging; thus the numbers affect the PCs directly, but it isn't true that a tailor actually fails to make jeans half the time, nor that every tailor must have a 99% Make Jeans roll.  It's an approximation of the universe as it is.

In Realism 1, however, you have something quite different than a fudge factor.  You have the idea that the rules do not actually accord with the universe, and need not attempt to do so.  They facilitate a representation which feels plausible, and cannot ever be taken literally -- to do so breaks the plausibility, the fourth wall as it were.  This is a radically different perspective.

My only objection here is that R.1 need not necessarily be limited to the plausibility structure of our own world or universe.  You can state (non-mechanically) that the setting-universe differs from our own in the following way or ways, and then set up your rules as usual.  So long as the play maintains plausibility, i.e. keeps the "dream" going, you have R.1, without the need for that to mean a straight analogy to our own universe.  I grant that this is difficult, but I do not think R.1 needs to be restricted thus.

Nice idea -- I'll think about  the linguistic implications if they come up, but in the meantime you might also consider that law, i.e. legal systems, are a perfect example of the R.1 system that claims to be R.2: the law claims to represent reality accurately, but in point of fact is based on enormous and readily disprovable assumptions.

Hi Mike,

I think we are now on the same planet with both realisms. Your categorisation of realist 2 players into the stubborn (2.1) and reasonable (2.2) is good but I think that it is important to recognize that both have the same (epistemological) assumptions aboput the system. 2.1 just thinks that the system is a perfect sim as it is and 2.2 think that it is not perfect now but it should be perfected. Both think that a system can/should be a perfect sim and it is fair to assume it is if there is no contradicton with setting material. I myself identify often as an 2.2 and dislike 2.1 but I am aware of the fallacies involved. Like you said it is a fun thought experiment.

I agree with you on Realism 1 being the realism that is usually meant when gamers talk about realism. You label Realism 2 as detailism but I think that detailism is just a subset of Realism 2 and its most visible symptom. To understand where I'm coming from you need to keep in mind the literary orign of this categorization. I guess Realism 2 can also be understood as RPG branch of philosphical realism. (I'm not a philosopher so I'm not sure about this.)

Quote
Only the Realist/Detailist want's both something like the real world, and it provided in detail (they wouldn't like a game like Court of Nine Chambers, not because it's not detailed effectively, but because it's not Realistic at all; in fact it's specifically Surrealistic).

- I agree that Realism 1 and 2 do not have to combine but they often do - just like in literary realism.

Quote
Making any sense?

- Yes, a lot.

Hi Clerich,

Yes I agree that neither realism is never pure. Perhaps Realism 1 and 2 are better understood as prototypes or continuums than strict categories. This matches better with the way they are present in systems and players' thinking.

With Realism 1 I think you are confusing two things. Plausibility is not same as realism. If detailism is a subset of Realism 2 plausibility (Plausibilism???) is more like a hyperset of Realism 1. Realism is plausible but other things can be plausible too. I think that we are closest to the common use of realism if we define it with the degree of difference to the real world. Plausibility - as I see it - is more interested in consistency and the like. You can have a lot of plausibility and Realism 2
with only minimal Realism 1.

Johannes,

It's not that I'm confusing plausibility with realism in an ordinary literary sense.  Rather, I'm suggesting that you expand your definition, or else confine the nature of "reality" such that we're only talking about relatively invariant factors.  As your definition currently stands, every game can be "ranked" in terms of how unRealistic it is.  A fantasy or extreme sci-fi game, for example, simply isn't realistic, if the measure of realism is a comparison to our own world.  But to define things so overly limits the category.  Isn't it useful to be able to distinguish between Realisms 1 and 2, even when we're talking about a fantasy game?

Yeah, ironically, I think that maybe there's a Realism 3. That is, attempting to be as much like real life as the non-plausible elements allow. So, a designer adhering to Realism 3 means that he's trying to make magic be "what it would be like if it were real". Which is, of course, a contrary to fact/conditional to error fallacy. But let's assume that we're not talking logic here, but some esthetic sense that says that we can make games that have this quality.

For example, it might be said that it wouldn't be "realistic" for a spell that created a candle flame to be able to be used to kill someone, by applying the flame externally to their body for a second or two. Thus, figuring out what the "Realistic" damage of that spell is if used offensively is important for "realism".

Or is this just Plausibility? Or is this just a form of Realism 2 (assuming that the mechanics describe the world).

Hmmm. This is still all far from clear.

BTW, I'm going on record as speculating that the vast majority of people who use the term Realistic mean somethign more like Realism 1 or what I'm describing as Realism 3. Lot's of people may adhere to Realism 2, but they don't think of a game well designed that way as Realistic? I think they think of it in terms of consistency. Especially if the game in question is far from Realistic 1.

Mike

Ok, as far as I understand Mike's Realism 3 is the same as clerich's realism (plausibilism). I agree that gamers use the word realism in this sense and it is useful to acommodate this sense into it. BUT I think it already has done it. If we see the Realisms as prototypes or continuums then a game can be realistic (1 and/or 2) to a degree. It's not either/or but how much. I know that this easily results in negative ranking but I don't see it really as a problem.

I'll now bring in something that could be useful for this discussion about the realism of fantasy. This will quite long. I'll address Mike's example in the end.

One consept that can be useful to us here is the principle of minimal departure. I don't know if you are familiar with it so I'll give a short explanation in literary terms: When we read a book, the text contains a set of propositions which form a fictional world. However the world in the text is incomplete, it has only those features that are specified in the text. EXAMPLE: Doyle's Sherlok Holmes stories never mention Finnland so it doesen't exist in the fictional world of the text.

However we don't treat the world as incomplete. We don't think that the fictional world lacks the unmentioned features. We percieve them as existing but unspecified/indeterminate. So the world of the text is seen as an incomplete representation of another fictional world. The text gives us a picture but the picture has gaps in it - it doesen't show everything there is to see
.
We then use our imagination to fill in the gaps as we like and feel necessary. However our imagination is not free. It is constrained by the principle of minimal departure which means that we imagine the unspecified features to be as close to the features of the actual world (our native world) as possible given the specified features of the world in the text. EXAMPLE: When reading a Holmes novel, I imagine that there is Finnland of the historical period in the northest part of Doyle's fictional Europe. I don't imagine there's a land inhabited by little green men.

But what about fantasy? Here we come to another important constraint to the imagination: generic landscapes. Generic landscapes are our intertextual knowledge of different genres. They are combined with the principle of minimal departure like this: When we somehow assume a story to belong into some genre the departure point of the principle becomes the generic landscape of the genre. EXAMPLE: If a story begins with "Once upon a time..." we know that we are reading a fairy tale and we assume that there will be dragons, witches and princesses in the fictional world.

Now how does this realte to gaming and realism/plausibility? I believe our imagination work pretty much in the same way when we game as when we read. Plausibility is in part created by not conflicting with the principle of minimal departure. We feel that the game world should be similar to our view of the actual world and the genre. Principle of minimal departure in respect to the actual world is what I mean with Realism 1. Do not consider the actual world only in terms of natural laws but also in terms of logic: the more logical contradiction there are the harder it becomes to imagine a world. (What would a world where 3 is not a prime number be?)

It should be noted that plausibility is created with other means as well (coherence of setting, reality effects, believable psychology of characters etc.). It should also be noted that generic landscapes do allow the creation of new things. However the audience might have hard time if their expectations were radically broksen. Fantasy plausibility (clerich's realism) is IMO created by carefully thinking the ins and outs of the fantasy setting and explaining them. This gives the setting coherence which leads to plausibility/realism.

Mike's candle example is principle of minimal departure and Realism 1 at work as far as I can see. In our world you cannot kill someone with a brief contact to a candle flame. That's why it feels unrealistic - even unplausible. The difference between our perception of our own reality and the in-game reality is too big for us.

I'm sorry I couldn't come up with a new Realism in this post ;-)