New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast
Results 1 to 30 of 109
  1. - Top - End - #1
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default When realistic gets too realistic

    Has anyone ever started making something in their game and just stepped back because it was just a bit too realistic?
    Say a villians escape strategy, or a plan to destroy the world that you suddenly realise is all too feasible, or if someone actually tried something you put together a lot of people could get hurt?
    I had a recent moment like this and decided to rewrite an entire setting based on this fact. I know some books and movies have been quashed because of similar issues, but does the gaming community at large have a responsibility to worry about stuff like this?

    How would you guys handle this?
    Last edited by Calthropstu; 2021-05-08 at 10:54 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Titan in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Jul 2013

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Gaming, in general, is a private affair and thus can be concerned with not being squicky to the players without needing to worry about not being squicky to everyone.

    Whatever you were making felt squicky to you, so you discarded it. That is the general reaction to circumstances like "uncomfortably too realistic" or other circumstances.

    Some tables even implement a safeword system. One example is having a bowl in the middle of the table. If someone picks up the bowl then the scene ends without judgement.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-05-08 at 11:12 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    "Too realistic" is vague on what the actual problem is.

    Realism in games and art primarily means three things:

    1) fidelity to reality: how close the model of the game world resembles the real world.
    2) attention to detail.
    3) presenting the subject matter as-it-is, without romanticism, vilification, symbolism, speculation or supernatural elements.

    The primary issues of realism, per each point, are:

    P1) Dissonant models of reality: the creator and audience do not agree on what the real world is like, ironically making a realistic work feel less real. For example: people who have never been around horses might be surprised that real horses don't make the sound of two coconuts clapping together when they walk.
    P2) Excessive attention to detail slows down the creative process, or in the case of a game, the process of play. For example: keeping track of when characters have to go to the toilet would be realistic, but mostly take time from more interesting things.
    P3) Realism directly clashes with speculative elements; it opens up realistic elements to unintended symbolic interpretation and vice versa. For example: if you try to realistically describe an invented minority, audience members may interprete that species as allegory of a real minority, regardless of whether it is.

    Chances are the issues you want addressed are none of these.

    Chances are you are asking of emotional distance or transference of information. Namely:

    P4) you think a fictional situation too closely resembles a real situation that invoked traumatic emotional response in the audience. For example: your book called the Two Towers reminds people of WTC terror attacks.
    P5) you are afraid the fictional situation is telling the audience something you shouldn't be telling. For example: you are concerned the blueprints of a bomb in your game would allow someone to build a real bomb.

    So, specify which of these problems you are worried about, so that the correct solutions can be given.

    ---

    OldTrees1:

    Safewords exists to partially solve the problem of "how to prevent unnecessary harm in practices that inherently risk immediate harm". That's similar to just one of the above five problems and only in extreme cases.

    Safewords do not exist to prevent or eliminate "squick" and using them (or any equivalent system) for that is dubious.
    Last edited by Vahnavoi; 2021-05-09 at 03:30 AM.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Imp

    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Sweden
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    In the first session of my homebrew, after the very first combat this exact criticism was leveraged against me. "too realistic".
    Spoiler: the story
    Show

    The players were on a transport ship, transporting extremely valuable cargo. They were hired specifically to ward off pirates.
    Cue pirates, the pirates use a drone to deliver a message "surrender and live, if any one resists then we will kill everyone on board"
    One of the players who specializes in the intimidation skill uses his skill. He successfully convinces the pirates of how dangerous he is. So when one of the pirates successfully sneaks on board he immediately empties the magazine of his submachine gun, doing a sneak attack on this player. This player isn't wearing any armor (I asked him if he wanted any armor during session 0, he said "no")
    He is immediately downed, in critical condition and slowly dying.

    It's of course very realistic that if you get a sneak attack in with a submachine gun and opts to empty the whole magazine on an unarmored person they're very unlikely to survive.


    I changed it later, it's still "realistic" but toned down in favor of giving players second chances, to be merciful basically.

    However if the BBEG wins then the game should be over. It's either the PCs or the BBEG. There should be a feasible way of stopping the BBEG but if they don't then the BBEG should win. And they lose.
    Black text is for sarcasm, also sincerity. You'll just have to read between the lines and infer from context like an animal

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    @Mastikator: That's an example of players saying "too realistic" when they mean "too easy to lose".

    You can solve such problems by decreasing realistic lethality of weapons, but you can also solve such problems by changing other parameters of the scenario while still adhering to realism.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Titan in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Jul 2013

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    "Too realistic" is vague on what the actual problem is.

    -snip-

    So, specify which of these problems you are worried about, so that the correct solutions can be given.

    ---

    OldTrees1:

    Safewords exists to partially solve the problem of "how to prevent unnecessary harm in practices that inherently risk immediate harm". That's similar to just one of the above five problems and only in extreme cases.

    Safewords do not exist to prevent or eliminate "squick" and using them (or any equivalent system) for that is dubious.
    I agree that the phrase "too realistic" is too vague. I read into the example that the OP was talking about situations uncomfortable enough that someone would withdraw consent. Specifically they found these details made them that extremely uncomfortable while writing the setting. Unfortunately my vocabulary is a bit limited so I used "squick" to describe that.

    Also I see safewords as existing to partially solve the problem of "how to establish trust in the ability to withdraw consent and exit without judgement" which itself is used as a tool to solve the problem you mention.

    Consider someone with extreme arachnophobia, playing a campaign in the underdark. They face some driders and everything is fine, until it gets a bit too realistic and triggers their arachnophobia. They signal to everyone their distress and it gets resolved without judgement.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-05-09 at 07:34 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Asmotherion's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2015
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    I feel realism gives fantasy the thing that it lacks by itself to give a feeling of "it could happen to us" and immerse the players into the game. So, while I believe Lack of fantasy in a game can be a problem, I always prefear my fantasy combined with as much realism as possible.

    Please visit and review my System.
    Generalist Sorcerer

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    @Oldtrees1:

    "Squick" is a combination of two basic emotions: surprise and disgust. It then seques to fear or anger depending on temperament as it pertains to fight/flight/freeze response.

    Mentally healthy people do not need special protections from these emotions in an engineered situation, any more than someone stepping in rollercoaster needs the ability to stop the ride because they are feeling scared.

    A phobia is defined as excessive and irrational fear response. That is, when you are talking phobias, you are no longer talking about what's normal and necessary for mentally healthy people, and should specify that.

    As far as practical matters go, safewords are neither particularly necessary nor good for dealing with phobias. They are not particularly necessary because typical process of play in a tabletop game does not prevent the phobic person from communicating their discomfort or leaving the situation via normal means. They are not particularly good because invocation of safewords can only reasonably be done when there's immediate risk, which in typical scenario means the trigger of the phobia is already being described or has been described and the phobic person has already been made anxious before they think of saying the safeword. The best way to deal with phobias is for a person to be open about them from the start of the play process.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Pex's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2013

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    In the first session of my homebrew, after the very first combat this exact criticism was leveraged against me. "too realistic".
    Spoiler: the story
    Show

    The players were on a transport ship, transporting extremely valuable cargo. They were hired specifically to ward off pirates.
    Cue pirates, the pirates use a drone to deliver a message "surrender and live, if any one resists then we will kill everyone on board"
    One of the players who specializes in the intimidation skill uses his skill. He successfully convinces the pirates of how dangerous he is. So when one of the pirates successfully sneaks on board he immediately empties the magazine of his submachine gun, doing a sneak attack on this player. This player isn't wearing any armor (I asked him if he wanted any armor during session 0, he said "no")
    He is immediately downed, in critical condition and slowly dying.

    It's of course very realistic that if you get a sneak attack in with a submachine gun and opts to empty the whole magazine on an unarmored person they're very unlikely to survive.


    I changed it later, it's still "realistic" but toned down in favor of giving players second chances, to be merciful basically.

    However if the BBEG wins then the game should be over. It's either the PCs or the BBEG. There should be a feasible way of stopping the BBEG but if they don't then the BBEG should win. And they lose.
    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    @Mastikator: That's an example of players saying "too realistic" when they mean "too easy to lose".

    You can solve such problems by decreasing realistic lethality of weapons, but you can also solve such problems by changing other parameters of the scenario while still adhering to realism.
    The objection is to Zap, you're dead, you don't play any more.

    Don't explain the joke. It's a joke on how Stormtroopers in Star Wars always miss because it plays on realism. If they shot Han in the hangar bay, story over. If they shot Luke swinging over the chasm, story over. There's a reason why in D&D save or die spells no longer exist. It was learned it's not fun to have Zap, you're dead. There does need to be risk. Zap, zap, zap, zap, zap you're dead is fine. Zap you're inconvenienced is fine. It's still not fun for the player to be Zap you don't play this combat anymore, but it's better than no more play at all make a new character if you want. If there's a Remedy available to end the inconvenience or get to continue to play in the combat then it's all good. The loss of a turn or two becomes part of the fun of the game.

    That's the strongest symptom of the realism problem. Realism bothers me when it gets in the way of the fun. Realism often gets in the way by the rules. It's why Fighters can't have Nice Things. They're bound by Guy At The Gym limitations, but magic can do anything. When a player wants to do something the rules don't specifically cover it can trigger a DM into thinking the player is trying to get away with something. I can grant sometimes that is the case or the player may not understand why something couldn't/shouldn't work; it's the DM knee-jerking 'No that's not realistic' I'm objecting to. A DM not always saying No is not the same thing as always saying Yes.

    What's needed is not realism but verisimillitude. It doesn't matter what the real world says. Does it make sense for the game world? Yes, it makes sense you don't die from the pirate's first shot of the machine gun. It makes sense the raging barbarian can pick up the large boulder and throw it down the hill hitting the advancing orcs.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    "Too realistic" is vague on what the actual problem is.
    I did that deliberately so a greater conversation could occur as I was curious what people would say.

    My specific circumstances applied to a world wide calamity being planned by BBEG in a modern setting. It got far too real, and kind of unstoppable.

    So I scrapped it and did something else. I ended up with exactly what I didn't want. A cliche plot that was predictable. But I kinda felt it best to scrap what I had written.

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Imp

    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Sweden
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    @Mastikator: That's an example of players saying "too realistic" when they mean "too easy to lose".

    You can solve such problems by decreasing realistic lethality of weapons, but you can also solve such problems by changing other parameters of the scenario while still adhering to realism.
    The criticism happened after the combat, by a different player, and only after I asked for criticism. (which I asked for because I wanted feedback on my homebrew system).

    But it made me realize that if it's that easy for a player to die, then it's equally easy for the players do kill NPCs (the game is symmetric). Since then the players all decided that armor was important if you're putting yourself into situations where you might get shot. A thing I try to keep in mind is that realism is overrated and dumb, it should only be used in service of verisimilitude, which is awesome and vital. I slightly scaled down the lethality, increased the importance of tactics and counterplay. If the players still wanna play like idiots then that's their choice and I certainly won't pull back from killing PCs.
    Black text is for sarcasm, also sincerity. You'll just have to read between the lines and infer from context like an animal

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    When or from who you received your feedback is not relevant to what I said. The point I'm making is that there's a both ways to rephrase the problem, and solutions to it, that completely skip arguments on the degree of realism.

    As for realism being "dumb and overrated" or that it "should only be used in service of verisimilitude", I strongly disagree. Value of verisimilitude depends on what overall purpose of a work is and what the end-users base their ideas of truth on. F.ex.
    , if you want your players to learn something about real horses, you do not rely on the coconut effect just because that's how your players expect horses walking around to sound like.

    In general, before discussing value of realism, RPG hobbyists should actually learn more about what that term means in wider realm of art, instead of using wishy-washy colloquial definitions to complain about whatever their pet peeve is this morning.

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Aug 2010

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    I'd also like to point out that there's two reasonable ways of viewing realism:

    1) Given an event A, the results of that event roughly correspond to the percentages that we'd see those results in real life.
    2) Given an event A, the results of that event are plausible

    For a lot (not all) of gaming, I prefer the second option.
    "Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Those two views only even apply when three conditions are met:

    1) An event has more than one plausible result
    2) The statistical distribution of those results is known
    3) you are deciding between results randomly.

    Given these conditions, there is a third reasonable view: only model results that fit in a reasonably-sized randomizer and nix extreme outliers to save time. Or, in different words, choose the level of accuracy that's efficient for what you're trying to do.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Orc in the Playground
     
    MindFlayer

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    I did that deliberately so a greater conversation could occur as I was curious what people would say.

    My specific circumstances applied to a world wide calamity being planned by BBEG in a modern setting. It got far too real, and kind of unstoppable.

    So I scrapped it and did something else. I ended up with exactly what I didn't want. A cliche plot that was predictable. But I kinda felt it best to scrap what I had written.
    It's difficult to give any meaningful advice when you haven't told us what you were originally planning.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    The criticism happened after the combat, by a different player, and only after I asked for criticism. (which I asked for because I wanted feedback on my homebrew system).

    But it made me realize that if it's that easy for a player to die, then it's equally easy for the players do kill NPCs (the game is symmetric). Since then the players all decided that armor was important if you're putting yourself into situations where you might get shot. A thing I try to keep in mind is that realism is overrated and dumb, it should only be used in service of verisimilitude, which is awesome and vital. I slightly scaled down the lethality, increased the importance of tactics and counterplay. If the players still wanna play like idiots then that's their choice and I certainly won't pull back from killing PCs.
    My players have the opposite problem. They frequently ask for a deadlier system because they like one shotting enemies, but then get mad when they are one-shotted in turn.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  17. - Top - End - #17
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Drogorn View Post
    It's difficult to give any meaningful advice when you haven't told us what you were originally planning.
    Yeah, that would be dumb.*

    The reason I stopped and rewrote it was because IT SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME. I was writing a plan for a villian that COULD ACTUALLY WORK. In a MODERN setting.

    So no, I won't be posting specifics.

    *Me posting specifics would be dumb. Not insulting you.
    Last edited by Calthropstu; 2021-05-09 at 04:05 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #18
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Imp

    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Sweden
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    My players have the opposite problem. They frequently ask for a deadlier system because they like one shotting enemies, but then get mad when they are one-shotted in turn.
    That's my problem, I don't want it to be a competition of "who wins initiative". The problem IMO isn't "not deadly enough" but "too deadly".
    Black text is for sarcasm, also sincerity. You'll just have to read between the lines and infer from context like an animal

  19. - Top - End - #19
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    Yeah, that would be dumb.*

    The reason I stopped and rewrote it was because IT SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME. I was writing a plan for a villian that COULD ACTUALLY WORK. In a MODERN setting.

    So no, I won't be posting specifics.

    *Me posting specifics would be dumb. Not insulting you.
    I am also curious for whatever you do feel like posting.

    If its any consolation, you probably aren't the first person to think of something like this, and there are probably safeguards against it irl



    For example, I work in water treatment, and we have done a lot of counter terrorism planning, but we have yet to think of a way terrorists could sabotage our operations that wouldn't be vastly less effective when compared to more traditional means of inflicting violence.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  20. - Top - End - #20
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2015

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    If its any consolation, you probably aren't the first person to think of something like this, and there are probably safeguards against it irl
    Indeed, the world is not easily destroyed. Hypothetical world-ending plots usually rely on pretending existing safeguards do not exist, giving the villain unreasonable resources to work with, or positing a chain of casual dominos that are unlikely to actually fall in sequence.

    Now, it's certainly possible to come up with fictional plots that are both plausible and very damaging (case in point, thriller novelist Tom Clancy predicted the possibility of a terrorist attack using a passenger airliner), but are highly unlikely to be country-ending never mind world ending.

    Most apocalypse-level risks are both fairly well understood and have also been hypothesized in fiction extensively. It is incredibly unlikely that any single person discovers some drastically new threat.
    Now publishing a webnovel travelogue.

    Resvier: a P6 homebrew setting

  21. - Top - End - #21
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    Indeed, the world is not easily destroyed. Hypothetical world-ending plots usually rely on pretending existing safeguards do not exist, giving the villain unreasonable resources to work with, or positing a chain of casual dominos that are unlikely to actually fall in sequence.

    Now, it's certainly possible to come up with fictional plots that are both plausible and very damaging (case in point, thriller novelist Tom Clancy predicted the possibility of a terrorist attack using a passenger airliner), but are highly unlikely to be country-ending never mind world ending.

    Most apocalypse-level risks are both fairly well understood and have also been hypothesized in fiction extensively. It is incredibly unlikely that any single person discovers some drastically new threat.
    It involved something that could infinitely scale, wasn't difficult to mass produce, involved mostly easily obtainable resources and enabled small groups to take down much larger groups.

    It couldn't "destroy the world." But it would threaten the security of every nation and every city everywhere. Which is almost the same thing.

  22. - Top - End - #22
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2015

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    It involved something that could infinitely scale, wasn't difficult to mass produce, involved mostly easily obtainable resources and enabled small groups to take down much larger groups.

    It couldn't "destroy the world." But it would threaten the security of every nation and every city everywhere. Which is almost the same thing.
    So the AK-47? Seriously, there's something like 72 million of those in circulation. And history has shown that the mass production of assault rifles threatened the security of every nation and every city in the world.

    My guess, in terms of a technology that doesn't quite exist, is something like killer drones. That's theoretically plausible but actually rather difficult in practice. It's also not a new idea - the robot drone apocalypse goes at least as far back as Philip K. D!ck's Second Variety, published in, wait for it, 1953 (this story, like many of Philip K D!ck's, became a major movie, in this case 1995's Screamers).

    Edit: seriously, **** gets censored? It's a name.
    Last edited by Mechalich; 2021-05-09 at 07:46 PM.
    Now publishing a webnovel travelogue.

    Resvier: a P6 homebrew setting

  23. - Top - End - #23
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    So the AK-47? Seriously, there's something like 72 million of those in circulation. And history has shown that the mass production of assault rifles threatened the security of every nation and every city in the world.

    My guess, in terms of a technology that doesn't quite exist, is something like killer drones. That's theoretically plausible but actually rather difficult in practice. It's also not a new idea - the robot drone apocalypse goes at least as far back as Philip K. D!ck's Second Variety, published in, wait for it, 1953 (this story, like many of Philip K D!ck's, became a major movie, in this case 1995's Screamers).

    Edit: seriously, **** gets censored? It's a name.
    I have given all I can without breaking forum rules and probably dozens of laws.

    Killer drones was my fallback that I ended up writing.

  24. - Top - End - #24
    Librarian in the Playground Moderator
     
    LibraryOgre's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    San Antonio, Texas
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Somewhat related: I had a Vampire: The Masquerade Story Teller who tended to get highly into things for a while, and model his gaming after them. One of those was firearms. He complete redid the Vampire system (which was a pretty standard "light pistol, heavy pistol" sort of system), to the point where we were having to pick our ammo by grain... i.e. we had to select a specific weight of bullet, the amount of powder, etc. To no one's surprise but his own, this greatly bogged down the game, since none of the rest of us had this knowledge, and my request to just buy some 9mm ammo was met with scorn.
    The Cranky Gamer
    *It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
    *Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
    *Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
    *The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
    Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
    There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.

  25. - Top - End - #25
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    ClericGuy

    Join Date
    Jun 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    No, I have never been smarter than every rebel/terrorist/military group on the planet and come up with a way to destroy civilization.

    If you have...well, I guess I'm glad you're keeping it to yourself, oh almighty super-genius. But I really, really doubt it. And frankly, if you're really smart enough to come up with a way to destroy civilization and are sane enough not to want to you probably wouldn't play 'come guess with me and marvel at my genius on an online forum.'

    Sorry if this is mean, but frankly, trying to convince people of the existence of a non-existent existential threat which you thought up prepping an RPG is fairly mean as well.

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by ecarden View Post
    No, I have never been smarter than every rebel/terrorist/military group on the planet and come up with a way to destroy civilization.

    If you have...well, I guess I'm glad you're keeping it to yourself, oh almighty super-genius. But I really, really doubt it. And frankly, if you're really smart enough to come up with a way to destroy civilization and are sane enough not to want to you probably wouldn't play 'come guess with me and marvel at my genius on an online forum.'

    Sorry if this is mean, but frankly, trying to convince people of the existence of a non-existent existential threat which you thought up prepping an RPG is fairly mean as well.
    Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I didn't. Not the purpose of this thread. I am not playing a guessing game. I am not trying to convince people of a threat. I have said all I will on it. The purpose of this thread is to ask if others have had realism strong enough to make them take a step back and say "let's not." Therw's many forms this could take. Rape and pillage of a town getting squicky, forced labor reaching descriptive heights, Genetic modification being fleshed out enough it makes people disturbed or, in my case, stumbling on something dangerous enough to scare me.

    I don't have many mediums with which to discuss something like this. So I chose here. So please, in the future, try not to get insulting.

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2020

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    Yeah, that would be dumb.*

    The reason I stopped and rewrote it was because IT SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME. I was writing a plan for a villian that COULD ACTUALLY WORK. In a MODERN setting.

    So no, I won't be posting specifics.

    *Me posting specifics would be dumb. Not insulting you.
    When you put it that way, your problem is solidly P5): you're worried about telling your players something you shouldn't.

    Without knowing specifics of what you wrote, it's impossible to tell if your concerns are well-founded or not. I do agree that getting into the specifics would be dumb; independent of your players misusing them, putting, say, blueprints of a bomb in an anonymous public forum and asking "would this work?" is a great way to attract wrong kind of attention.

    I by and large don't worry about this problem in my games. For contrast, my other hobbies include martial arts and hunting, which involve actually learning and teaching things you can use to injure and kill people and animals. By experience, I can tell this kind of information doesn't transfer well over medium of tabletop games - I can't get "too realistic" without turning a game into a live exercise. This isn't that happens by accident and consequently it isn't a thing I have to "walk back" with any frequency - I'd have to go out of my way to get there first.

  28. - Top - End - #28
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Feb 2014

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Ah, I remember a Shadowrun 2e game that had us closing airports on the East Coast in order to prevent an ambassador from coming in by a certain time. That was sometime in 2000.

    And the GM or our Star Wars game, right at the point that the pandemic started, concluded that the best way for us to deal with the Eternal Empire was either a plague or ramming their homeworld using a Holdo maneuver, and decided he wanted something less apocalyptic for the next game.

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Aug 2010

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Those two views only even apply when three conditions are met:

    1) An event has more than one plausible result
    Right. If there's only one plausible result, it happens. At least, in my mind. Others may (and often do!) disagree.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    2) The statistical distribution of those results is known
    Eh, I'll take "rough approximation that everyone is okay with". Often, people have wildly wrong impressions of what might happen, and so actual realism will seem less realistic than things matching their preconceptions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    3) you are deciding between results randomly.
    For sure, though if you're not determining things randomly, you're pretty much, by definition, in my second category.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Given these conditions, there is a third reasonable view: only model results that fit in a reasonably-sized randomizer and nix extreme outliers to save time. Or, in different words, choose the level of accuracy that's efficient for what you're trying to do.
    That's really still the 1st option, just maybe leaning heavily on the "roughly" bit. Life is complex - a d20 roll isn't going to capture every possible result.

    Think of it this way - a dagger or sword blow can mess someone up. Badly. A few seconds of getting stabbed with a knife, or a single sword blow, will pretty much incapacitate you. And yet, that's not what happens in most games, so we can say that's not realistic. So we have two options for dealing with that:

    1) Add the range of reasonable results to the system, so that a couple seconds of stabs/anything more than a minor cut with a sword will basically take someone out, and go with that. That's option #1.
    2) Describe getting "attacked" with a sword/dagger in a way that doesn't take you out in a way that's realistic - glancing blows, barely dodging, etc.

    Either of these can be seen as realistic, as they result in events happening that are realistic (even if sometimes improbable). The second may not be seen as realistic by some people as it excludes a number of possible, even likely results. That's a matter of taste.
    "Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"

  30. - Top - End - #30
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: When realistic gets too realistic

    Societies hate this one weird trick to overthrow civilization...
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •