Why 'Realism' in Fantasy?
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The Adventurer's Almanac
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It is very, very important, with regard to this question, to differentiate between settings that are actually attempting to present an internally consistent fictional world, and those that are not. The question of realism doesn't apply to the latter at all, and the demand for verisimilitude is drastically reduced in such a setting.
This kind of setting is very, very common. All the major superhero settings are like this, the Marvel and DC universes simply are not viable fictional worlds, which is why their exploration of social consequences is limited to extremely broad thought experiments like Red Son, not intricate explorations of the actual impact of superheroes existing on Earth (it is also why stories that attempt to be series within said universes, like Batman v Superman, fail). One Punch Man is a series that takes the ridiculousness and nonsensical setup of most superhero universes to a comic extreme, but it shares the same basic DNA with its counterparts.
The demand for 'realism' tends to arise when the audience is presented with a setting that makes a claim of internal consistency, but is in fact not consistent at all, often in ways that become more and more blatant over time due to power escalation (this is extremely common in shounen manga). In tabletop gaming, this happens most often when one considers the type of world that might result given the system mechanics, demographic projects, and other data, and find that it does not match the fluff at all. Thus the demand for 'realism' is most an expression of trying to bring the mechanics and fluff into greater alignment, or, additionally, simply make the fluff make more sense overall. Much of the discussion in the Anatomy of a Failed Design for Vampire was built around just this sort of adjustment.
D&D is a weird case in that some of its settings have a fairly strong demand for internal consitency because they care about maintain a political and historical narrative - Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms - while others do not - Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer. At the same time, the D&D system, as written, generally doesn't output anything that fits any of those settings, however, the overall lower power level of characters in the earlier 1st and 2nd editions is less blatant in its failure to match the more consistency demanding settings (and, importantly, the novels set in those settings, the Dragonlance Chronicles, for instance, are very low in magic by D&D standards).
This kind of setting is very, very common. All the major superhero settings are like this, the Marvel and DC universes simply are not viable fictional worlds, which is why their exploration of social consequences is limited to extremely broad thought experiments like Red Son, not intricate explorations of the actual impact of superheroes existing on Earth (it is also why stories that attempt to be series within said universes, like Batman v Superman, fail). One Punch Man is a series that takes the ridiculousness and nonsensical setup of most superhero universes to a comic extreme, but it shares the same basic DNA with its counterparts.
The demand for 'realism' tends to arise when the audience is presented with a setting that makes a claim of internal consistency, but is in fact not consistent at all, often in ways that become more and more blatant over time due to power escalation (this is extremely common in shounen manga). In tabletop gaming, this happens most often when one considers the type of world that might result given the system mechanics, demographic projects, and other data, and find that it does not match the fluff at all. Thus the demand for 'realism' is most an expression of trying to bring the mechanics and fluff into greater alignment, or, additionally, simply make the fluff make more sense overall. Much of the discussion in the Anatomy of a Failed Design for Vampire was built around just this sort of adjustment.
D&D is a weird case in that some of its settings have a fairly strong demand for internal consitency because they care about maintain a political and historical narrative - Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms - while others do not - Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer. At the same time, the D&D system, as written, generally doesn't output anything that fits any of those settings, however, the overall lower power level of characters in the earlier 1st and 2nd editions is less blatant in its failure to match the more consistency demanding settings (and, importantly, the novels set in those settings, the Dragonlance Chronicles, for instance, are very low in magic by D&D standards).
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Omegonthesane
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Depends on how long the campaign is and how important combat is. Saitama automatically wins every battle, but in e.g. a parody Shadowrun game you probably also need a similarly absurd face and a similarly absurd hacker, while in a Call of Cthulhu game you'd at least also need a similarly absurd detective.The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:I also don't think, in a team-based RPG, that anyone would actually get to play Saitama because the joke is that he's stupidly overpowered. It might be fun to play an RPG where you play a team of Saitamas, but not an RPG where he's just part of the gang.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.
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i think "realism" can mean a lot of things in this context, including (roughly):
- what i think the initial meaning of the OP was, roughly like "people not having superpowers"
- the extent to which magic, superpowers etc interact with the world in a way that conforms to real-world physics, e.g. do the fire and ice spells actually follow something resembling the laws of thermodynamics or do they just Create Fire/Make It Hot or Create Ice/Make It Cold
- how much the setting seriously engages with the sociopolitical consequences of magic existing vs keeping a close semblance to familiar backdrops of medieval europe or whatever else in spite of the presence of magicians and monsters and blahbalhbab
- "grit" versus heroic fantasy
- realistic morality vs heroic protags fighting villainous antags
- how much the characters are supposed to resemble and interact like real people rather than larger-than-life heroic fantasy characters (i'd say these last three things are distinct in spite of their relations and the idea that "grimdark" is realistic is actually a serious problem)
and the list could go on, frankly. like, a lot of anime and anime-style fantasy-themed work will often have strong defiance of realism in what characters can do and how dramatic the narrative is, but the drama goes on around stuff to do with characters' (sometimes heavily pronounced) sympathetic and weirdly mundane vulnerabilities, insecurities and such. then you end up with a lot of fantasy that's heavy on the "grit" and is realistic in that sense, but involves characters who are almost entirely lacking in flaws that aren't conducive to good heroic storytelling. this even applies, i think, to "verisimilitude" - some settings fly in the face of their own internal inconsistency and that's actually okay, almost expected in settings that are more satirical for instance. but in fullmetal alchemist, which set itself apart by its rules governing principles of exchange, they can't get away with that because it's a core theme of the entire series. in spite of this, FMA gets really over-the-top at times, in ways that actually do challenge suspension of disbelief, because, you know, it's cool to do that. and despite its reference to real-world physics, it doesn't take that too seriously either - at least, not as seriously as your average sci-fi would.
- what i think the initial meaning of the OP was, roughly like "people not having superpowers"
- the extent to which magic, superpowers etc interact with the world in a way that conforms to real-world physics, e.g. do the fire and ice spells actually follow something resembling the laws of thermodynamics or do they just Create Fire/Make It Hot or Create Ice/Make It Cold
- how much the setting seriously engages with the sociopolitical consequences of magic existing vs keeping a close semblance to familiar backdrops of medieval europe or whatever else in spite of the presence of magicians and monsters and blahbalhbab
- "grit" versus heroic fantasy
- realistic morality vs heroic protags fighting villainous antags
- how much the characters are supposed to resemble and interact like real people rather than larger-than-life heroic fantasy characters (i'd say these last three things are distinct in spite of their relations and the idea that "grimdark" is realistic is actually a serious problem)
and the list could go on, frankly. like, a lot of anime and anime-style fantasy-themed work will often have strong defiance of realism in what characters can do and how dramatic the narrative is, but the drama goes on around stuff to do with characters' (sometimes heavily pronounced) sympathetic and weirdly mundane vulnerabilities, insecurities and such. then you end up with a lot of fantasy that's heavy on the "grit" and is realistic in that sense, but involves characters who are almost entirely lacking in flaws that aren't conducive to good heroic storytelling. this even applies, i think, to "verisimilitude" - some settings fly in the face of their own internal inconsistency and that's actually okay, almost expected in settings that are more satirical for instance. but in fullmetal alchemist, which set itself apart by its rules governing principles of exchange, they can't get away with that because it's a core theme of the entire series. in spite of this, FMA gets really over-the-top at times, in ways that actually do challenge suspension of disbelief, because, you know, it's cool to do that. and despite its reference to real-world physics, it doesn't take that too seriously either - at least, not as seriously as your average sci-fi would.
I think the grognard realism standard is "Can I imagine a buff everyman flavored 80s action hero doing this?" Which lets you ignore a whole lot of facts about human fragility and make up whatever you want for damage output, but caps out pretty quickly for other things like, say, feats of speed.
And it's perfectly fine for a game or character class's core fantasy to be "buff everyman 80s action hero," just as it's fine for it to be something else. Game authors have a responsibility to communicate what sort of fantasy their game provides as coherently and briefly as they can, so people know whether the work is actually what they want before digging into it, but a designer doesn't have any responsibility to make something that anyone in particular (or anyone at all) likes. Of course sometimes entitled nerds will get extremely angry that someone dare make something not targeted towards them, but this is hardly the only example of that.
For game designers, especially in the fantasy space, especially especially in the D&D-like fantasy space, there's an understandable desire to try to provide all the character fantasies that D&D has covered, so people who like that fantasy don't feel left out (I think on this forum it's called the Gnome problem? Mundane fighters are a gnome problem). But we've all covered to death how [mundane fighter + most other concepts + desire for game balance] doesn't actually work out, so it's probably best to stop and try to find some other concepts with high fandom overlaps with mundane fighters (anime? street level superheroes?) and offer those instead.
And it's perfectly fine for a game or character class's core fantasy to be "buff everyman 80s action hero," just as it's fine for it to be something else. Game authors have a responsibility to communicate what sort of fantasy their game provides as coherently and briefly as they can, so people know whether the work is actually what they want before digging into it, but a designer doesn't have any responsibility to make something that anyone in particular (or anyone at all) likes. Of course sometimes entitled nerds will get extremely angry that someone dare make something not targeted towards them, but this is hardly the only example of that.
For game designers, especially in the fantasy space, especially especially in the D&D-like fantasy space, there's an understandable desire to try to provide all the character fantasies that D&D has covered, so people who like that fantasy don't feel left out (I think on this forum it's called the Gnome problem? Mundane fighters are a gnome problem). But we've all covered to death how [mundane fighter + most other concepts + desire for game balance] doesn't actually work out, so it's probably best to stop and try to find some other concepts with high fandom overlaps with mundane fighters (anime? street level superheroes?) and offer those instead.
This is sort of the crux of the issue. Games set the tone and content of the world through a blend of mechanics and lore. Once the setting has "gelled" with the base it becomes hard to change in the future without risking losing a significant portion of the consumer base.MGuy wrote:I think that the only kind of realism worth talking about in the context of these games is actually not realism but just verisimilitude. People want to play in games that don't break their 'immersion' (immersion in this case being based on how they believe things 'should' work).
You see this outside of games too, any time a show or a book or a movie pulls a genre or convention shift between installments there's a non-zero number of fans upset that the thing they like is a little different now and uses a different kind of internal logic.