We all agree there has to be a joyful suspension of disbelief in our mutually enjoyable hobby. But how realistic are your games? Rules say one thing, but even stretched reality says something else. Wielding a flail in an open field is one thing, but swinging that bad boy in a low ceiling roadside inn with several support columns holding up the second floor? Not so much. Do rules such as hunger, dehydration, rain come into play? And in your WoG games, how friendly is that nameless village down in the valley? _________________ No one ever suspects the gnomes
For me, it really depends on the focus of the adventure.
If the idea is to get the PCs to a particular place quickly because that's where the adventure is, then I'm much more likely to hand-wave stuff like weather and starvation.
I've run some games, though, where that was the centerpiece of the adventure. A "man vs. the elements" sort of thing. In that case, I'm very much a stickler for it.
I suppose the answer is, whatever I need at the time to enable the game I want to run.
My games are fairly realistic. By that I mean they tend more toward the dramatic than the melodramatic. But, I don't get bogged down in the minutiae of reality. There are more relevant things to get bogged down in so far as the game is concerned, such as the details of the story, the characters in it, etc. Weather plays a role when activities are done in it that could be affected. You want to do acrobatics...in mud? Yep, I will probably put in an arbitrary penalty. Want to climb a rope...in the rain? Same thing. Will the people in that small, out of the way hamlet be friendly toward the PCs? Not likely, unless the cleric in the party just so happens to be flaunting a holy symbol of a predominant faith in the area. Would you be overly friendly toward a bunch of well armed sell swords who wandered into your neighborhood? Probably not, seeing as you might not know if they are good guys or bad guys by just looking at them (and it doesn't help that bad guys often masquerade as good guys). Then there are the Pholtans, whose idea of what "good" means tends to vary from that of others.
So, yes, I make a point of injecting as much realism into the game as I can; especially if it serves to enhance the story/experience. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Last edited by Cebrion on Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:34 am; edited 1 time in total
I think the most realistic aspect I strove for (when I played 15 years+ ago) was to make decisions hard and to provide real consequences for character actions.
In regard to the latter, ugly moral dilemmas were par for the course; not every adventure, but often enough that players expected to be making some difficult ethical/moral choice, usually of the who lived and died variety.
As far as the former, I adhered to Newton's 3rd Law, almost religiously. In this aspect of the game, extreme character actions were actually easy to handle. If the characters started acting like thugs and brigands, one could always dish out the Butch and Sundance treatment. It was the more subtle actions that were a challenge. If the characters set up a gold mine, or found some other way to make money without a great amount of risk or work, I would let them enjoy it for a bit, before claim jumpers, tax collectors, criminal syndicates and competing interests sought there piece of the action.
Taxes! That's right; even in my D&D games you pay taxes. The look of relief on one of my player's faces when they started working directly for the baron and found out that as part of that they didn't have to pay the adventurer's tax anymore was pretty comical. As was the look of consternation when they discovered they had to pay taxes on money that they had before they left town, but hadn't declared upon heading out for the old abandoned wizard's tower.
Realistic in terms of any action having a reaction; whatever it is the pcs do the world around them responds. The pcs are front and centre in the show but do not exist in isolation. The most important thing in maintaining versimilitude is the responses of all the other characters and environments around the pcs.
I'm happy with narration of a missed flail attack impacting upon a column but that's the province of the players; so long as it's not gonzo. Hate gonzo.
I'm happy with narration of a missed flail attack impacting upon a column but that's the province of the players; so long as it's not gonzo. Hate gonzo.
That sounds familiar.
I like to have the NPCs (good and bad) react specifically to PC actions, but I only use effects like weather and the seasons as flavoring for my games. If it's winter time, I simply remind the players now and then that it is snowy, so they need to have their PCs dressed warmly and they need to take that into account when trying to sneak through a forest. If the PCs are on a ship, I might throw in a storm once in a while for fun, but I don't let the dice decide every day what kind of weather they encounter. For me and my players, too much concern for food, weather, clothing, etc. isn't much fun.
I have to say that my games tend to be fairly realistic. Weather is pre rolled, tax collectors come knocking, and my lot of gamers love to go shopping .
The thing is, with my lot you never know what's coming so I try to antici........pate what mess they are going to leave me in.
We love the adventure side and the battles, however the mundane of life is also played through and that part is realistic.
Maybe I try to bore them into 'getting on with it!!!'
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