Tactical Question - Haley

[Joerg]

If I was writing a gritty realistic story about a woman living as a career criminal in New York, I would have every right to defend my dialogue choices for her as realistic or accurate. But I lose that defense the moment I have a character wiggle their fingers and shoot a ball of fire at a giant flying lizard, much less have the characters spout off about their hit points and Spot checks.

Interestingly, it seems that it's easier to accept magic and dragons as believable than some changes in human nature. Perhaps it's generally easier to accept big differences to the real world, or perhaps it's because we intrinsically know humans better than we know the laws of physics.

That doesn't mean one can't or shouldn't try to portray a world that's different regarding humans. It just means that people are more likely to find such a world 'unrealistic' than a world with dragons.

At a certain point, when you're pushing 40 and have spent one-quarter of your life drawing a stick figure comic about D&D, you start to ask yourself whether what you are doing is really important and what impact, if any, your work will have on the world beyond momentary distractions.

Don't underestimate the impact of momentary distractions. Even if your comic was just funny (of course, it's much more than that), making people laugh is worth a lot, too.