Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Xaoc 10-09-04, 01:07 PM	A survey Do you have realism in your game and how much???? I recently have added some : Examples 1) I demand some training in the course of level advancement . Pc fighters must train for example in some barracks at least once a weak. 2)I made a special armor rating that indicates the amount of damage armor can endure till mending. Post here about realism in your game.
Mal20 10-09-04, 01:12 PM	I've never found training to advance a level to be realistic. I mean, you have a fighter who beats the tar out of god knows how many creatures in the course of gaining enough experience to advance a level, and then he's required to go off and train? Silly. Training for specific feats, however, or to learn certain new skills, is realistic I would say.
Hugin 10-09-04, 01:40 PM	I demand some training in the course of level advancement . Pc fighters must train for example in some barracks at least once a weak. I agree with Mal20. I've had adventures where the PCs are away from settlements for months. Training for feats and skills (and multi-classing) is something that my players and I use to a degree IMC. As an example, the party had spent a number of game-months as slaves in a gladitorial coliseum fighting various battles. The player of the rogue told me he was thinking of taking a level of fighter due to the combat training and experience the character gained in the games; a realistic result of the character's actions. We apply the same logic with feats and skills, for instance, if a player wants a certain feat at next level, he has his character do things that would make this possible (like practice a manuever and/or train with a guild member). Skill points also must be placed in things that the character had a chance to learn in game. We do allow some things to be self-taught, of course.
Cantankerous 10-09-04, 02:00 PM	Realism is a bad term for it. Realism has no place in a fantasy game, it abrogates the entire mood. But: Making reasonable additions are a damned good thing for the game. They can counter balance some of the more fantastic elements and make the game world seem more like a place where you could actually live. This is something all of the great fantasy authors do. But instead of what you add, this post will be about some of what you should NOT add. There are some does and some don'ts for this issue. One don't that is as important as any do is to NEVER try to apply the strict rules of physics to a fantasy world. You never look more assinine as a DM as when you demand absolute realism from a ten foot fall and then pay no attention to how many tens of thousands of d6's of damage a dragon belly flopping on a character should do. Physics and D&D do NOT mix. 'Nough said. Now some of the other notable don'ts if you want a reasonable and consistant game world. 1) Do NOT allow every race and every beastie you find in the books, even in just the core books. Not all of them are mutually compatible. 2) Do NOT over populate with baddies. Especially with mutliple kinds of baddies. If the world is teeming with thirty different varieties of dragons and hosts thousands of them, then where in the Hell are they most of the time and why aren't they ruling the world with an iron claw? If in the same world you've got hordes of hordes of hordes of undead, why isn't some smart demi-lich holding the world firmly in a metaphysical strangle hold? If orcs are so numerous that they can spill hordes of thousands into lightly settled human lands every other decade, why the Hell haven't they exterminated the poor settlers a few hundred times over? And if all of the above are present, why aren't they constnatly at each others throats? I loved Forgotten Realms when I first got it, but the more I looked at that world the more I realized that it was one of the most stupidly, baddie heavily over populated fantasy worlds I'd ever seen. 3) A subjunctive to #2 is to not over populate the ability of a region to feed it's inhabitants. This is another one of the Forgotten Realms BIG stupidities. They have these massive citiies, with no surrounding farm lands to feed even a tiny portion of the population. Waterdeep has a winter population of half a million. That's stupendous for the amount of famr land they talk about it having. The surrounding farms would need to be hundreds of times more fertile and productive than those of Post Rennaissance France, which was the most poductive farm land in earth history until the early nineteenth century. More productive I could buy, but hundreds of times more productive? Give me a break. 4)Do NOT allow every prestige class out there at the same time. For the love of Mike peoples, if they're are only prestige classes, what is prestigious about them? 5) Limit high powered magic items. Pure and simple. Nothing makes a world appear so grotesquely top heavy as having dozens of high powered artifacts scattered about that no one is using. If these things are so wonderful, why aren't they in constant use? 6) Limit magic item period. Tanglefoot bags are so wildly useful that every horde that breathes should have to fight their way through swarms of these things on their way into every human or elven or halfling village they come near otherwise. And they are just the tip of the ice berg. You simply do not have to, and should not, allow all the items on the various equipment lists to be readily available, especially the magickal ones. Don'ts can be crucial to a reasonable game world. But: 1)DO allow a select few of those cool prestige classes, where they would reasonably fit. 2)DO allow a legendary item or tow to be out there, maybe even one that is "lost". 3)DO put in town where minor magic or alchemaical items items (like those nasty little tanglefoot bags or wands of healing with limited charges) can be had. A bit of variety makes for a great seasoning... if you remember that it's supposed to be seasoning, not the main course. Isshia
VirgilCaine 10-09-04, 02:13 PM	5) Limit high powered magic items. Pure and simple. Nothing makes a world appear so grotesquely top heavy as having dozens of high powered artifacts scattered about that no one is using. If these things are so wonderful, why aren't they in constant use? 6) Limit magic item period. Tanglefoot bags are so wildly useful that every horde that breathes should have to fight their way through swarms of these things on their way into every human or elven or halfling village they come near otherwise. And they are just the tip of the ice berg. You simply do not have to, and should not, allow all the items on the various equipment lists to be readily available, especially the magickal ones. 5b) Artifacts should make a difference in a PCs life for two reasons--they're trying to find one or they're trying to destroy one, or help some NPCs do same. IMO. 6b) Tanglefoot bags aren't magical. Besides, the Core books have no guidelines on obtaining magic items, other than an assumption that PCs can readily have access to them. And, not all magic items will be for sale--sentimental value (to former adventurers) and rarity will keep some from being sold by their owner.
Lina_Inverse 10-09-04, 02:13 PM	1) I demand some training in the course of level advancement . Pc fighters must train for example in some barracks at least once a weak. 100% unrealistic.do you go back to school every 2 years IRL?no.do you need to go to school to figure out what youve learned?no.how did these people get past lvl1 in the first place?!?!?!how did they get TOO lvl1?!?!?!this is not realistic merely idiotic and ruins internal logic. 2)I made a special armor rating that indicates the amount of damage armor can endure till mending. so after shelling out 60k gp for my shiney new magic fullplate it burns,do you supply your pcs with bonus gold because of this?and how do you make sure the pcs who lost armor get all said bonus gold? exactly,you didnt think though game balence first.WHICH IS THE NUMBER TWO CONCERN.first is fun.then is internal logic.realism dosent even matter when dealing with a fantastic world where the laws of reality have class&levels.
Xaoc 10-09-04, 02:19 PM	Well Thanks. I'll take all of this into account . Mal20: I meant training for a feat and skills like you said. VirgilCaine Member . About Forgotten Realms it is my Favorite world. I do agree there is a lot of unbalance forces. But a lot of interesting stuff. About Waterdeep it is cosmopolution center of trade. So all the supplies are in Waterdeep through trade!
IceFractal 10-09-04, 02:31 PM	Ah, but you're assuming that most of their food comes from farming. That's what really makes realism impossible for me, is the fact that they postulate a society not very different (not the same, but pretty similar) to medieval Europe, whereas a single spell that was as readily available as it is in D&D, even many of the cantrips, would totally change the world. For instance, while they never state this as far as I know, the solution to the food problem in FR is simple: Plates of Plenty. A woundrous item of Create Food & Water at will is 30,000 gp. Quite a bit of money, but easily possible for a kingdom to afford. That plate can create food and water for 1,800 people an hour, 43,200 people a day. Set up a network of those and you can feed a city without any farmlands at all. The fare would be pretty dull but that's easily fixed by the prestidigitation spell (salt shaker of prestidigitation, 1,000 gp, possibly less as it only has the "flavor" function, too much for most people to afford, but roadside stalls could own one and charge for people to use it). Those who could afford it would import food also, or even pay a Wizard to build them a variant version of the plate that could create different kinds of food (cheaper than the public ones even if it used a higher level spell, probably, due to only needing to activate a few times a day). Now, you might claim that the spellcaster's who knew the spell might snub their noses at the money offered and refuse for some strange reason to make any, but ... Create Food and Water is a Cleric spell. Good Clerics, especially of some gods, like Yondalla, would practically have an obligation to distribute these as cheaply as possible, maybe even selling them at minimum cost (15,000 gp), although they might prefer distributing them theirselves over selling to someone who was going to charge for the food generated by them). That's another thing. Clerics get a certain number of spells per day, and casting those spells doesn't hurt them or even tire them, and they get them back the next day whether they cast them all or not. Therefore, shouldn't good Clerics be obligated by their god's code to heal/cure diseases on/cast beneficial spells on as many people as possible, free of charge? (at least for spells without expensive components). But they charge rather high prices, and this doesn't make sense (ok, it makes sense for Clerics of certain dieties, but not all, and not the ones the PCs are likely to go to).
FriendoftheDork 10-09-04, 03:17 PM	I play in FR as well, and I simply overlook logical errors in the setting and make it my own game. When it comes to population, the biggest citites in Cormyr (where I play) are about 20-30 thousand people, something the farmland of cormyr can support quite well. Of course, alot of this food comes from further than a few miles from a city, and thus the food gets more expensive in the cities. No one but a God can create food and water at will, and Chantea does what she can. Spells are generally not free for everyone, but usually requires donations or outright costs. There are far too few good clerics in the world to heal everyone, and by the economic principle that those willing to pay the most to get a limited resource will get it, these spells are usually reserved for the very wealthy. However, only the most evil temple would refuse to stabilize a dying person brought to them, free of charge. But no temple, not even that of Illmater cures everyone that comes to them, free of charge. There just isn't enough of healing to go around, and people heal naturally over time anyway. There are charities for the most needy, paid for by the elite, but still people die of disease in citites such as Suzail nontheless. Starvation however is usually not a problem, as the King would import more food if needed. The clerics in such a city spend most of his slots on restorative spells and such, but retains a few if scrolls and potions are scarce.
VirgilCaine 10-09-04, 03:39 PM	Ah, but you're assuming that most of their food comes from farming. That's what really makes realism impossible for me, is the fact that they postulate a society not very different (not the same, but pretty similar) to medieval Europe, whereas a single spell that was as readily available as it is in D&D, even many of the cantrips, would totally change the world. Not really. Over on Enworld this was all hashed out in a thread. According to the Core books, there are too few spellcasters who can cast spells that make a difference. Plagues still can't be stopped--no Mass Cure Disease. Food production essentially can't be increased very much. Plant Growth makes all the plants more productive. That kind of thing.
Cantankerous 10-09-04, 04:09 PM	Using silly assed magic items to feed populations in the hundreds of thousands is ridiculous. Could it be done according to 3E? Sure, theoreticly, but should it be the rationale? Only if you like your illogic in jumbo sized portions. As for trade feeding the city, half a million person winter population means that they would need food stock piles the likes of which would be diffuclt to keep on hand today. And even with trade, you have balance of trade questions and all the subsidiary problems involved there. Waterdeep would have to have a trade deficeit that would scare modern economists just to keep their population fed. The other problem with a population that size for Waterdeep is, what the Hell are eighty percent of the population doing? In other cities of that gargantuine size (and for a basicly Renaissance era technological base, even with magic thrown in, it would be like having a population of ten million in today's terms) in the time frame being depicted there would have to be an extremely good reason for so many in one place. There is no good reason supplied for the size of Waterdeep. It isn't reasonable, much less realistic. They're supposedly a major trading port. For whom? Stuck where they are on the southern edge of what is supposed to be a frontier region, indeed, it is still called the Savage Frontier. They are thus a loooooooooong bloody way from their nearest overland trade partners, who are also supposedly a major mercantile center. In fact, most of the cities in the Forgotten Realms are supposedly major mercantile centers. Who are all these people trading with? There is no farming culture in most of the Forgotten Realms statelets to support even a small fraction of the population. Cormyr and Sembia are exceptions to an extent, but even their farm lands have to be awfully fertile compared to anything reasonable to support their populations. London, one of THE great cities of the pre & post-Rennaissance era, in the 1340's had a population less than one quarter the size of Waterdeep's much smaller summer population and even the mighty cities of Rome and Paris, in the very center of the most fertile regions in Europe, barely eclipsed Waterdeep's population through out most of their history; and both were supported by farming populations hundreds of times larger than what is mentioned for Waterdeep. Reasonable? Not even close. Isshia
Lina_Inverse 10-09-04, 04:16 PM	Using silly assed magic items to feed populations in the hundreds of thousands is ridiculous. Could it be done according to 3E? Sure, theoreticly, but should it be the rationale? Only if you like your illogic in jumbo sized portions. As for trade feeding the city, half a million person winter population means that they would need food stock piles the likes of which would be diffuclt to keep on hand today. And even with trade, you have balance of trade questions and all the subsidiary problems involved there. Waterdeep would have to have a trade deficeit that would scare modern economists just to keep their population fed. The other problem with a population that size for Waterdeep is, what the Hell are eighty percent of the population doing? In other cities of that gargantuine size (and for a basicly Renaissance era technological base, even with magic thrown in, it would be like having a population of ten million in today's terms) in the time frame being depicted there would have to be an extremely good reason for so many in one place. There is no good reason supplied for the size of Waterdeep. It isn't reasonable, much less realistic. They're supposedly a major trading port. For whom? Stuck where they are on the southern edge of what is supposed to be a frontier region, indeed, it is still called the Savage Frontier. They are thus a loooooooooong bloody way from their nearest overland trade partners, who are also supposedly a major mercantile center. In fact, most of the cities in the Forgotten Realms are supposedly major mercantile centers. Who are all these people trading with? There is no farming culture in most of the Forgotten Realms statelets to support even a small fraction of the population. Cormyr and Sembia are exceptions to an extent, but even their farm lands have to be awfully fertile compared to anything reasonable to support their populations. London, one of THE great cities of the pre & post-Rennaissance era, in the 1340's had a population less than one quarter the size of Waterdeep's much smaller summer population and even the mighty cities of Rome and Paris, in the very center of the most fertile regions in Europe, barely eclipsed Waterdeep's population through out most of their history; and both were supported by farming populations hundreds of times larger than what is mentioned for Waterdeep. Reasonable? Not even close. Isshia its illogical not too.there are good clerics,they have no real choice if they want to remain as such. and gasp magic makes the world a modern economy,the peasents have to do none-farming to survive!then the increases in creativite jobs are exponentiol.and the world becomes insanely magic rich within decadess. i love logic,it pwned joo. casters want money&luxury(neutral/evil) too or simply to help others(good).so the end realistic&rational result is that this is inventiable,and prolly happens faster than OUR industrial revolution.
VirgilCaine 10-09-04, 05:24 PM	its illogical not too.there are good clerics,they have no real choice if they want to remain as such. and gasp magic makes the world a modern economy,the peasents have to do none-farming to survive!then the increases in creativite jobs are exponentiol.and the world becomes insanely magic rich within decadess. i love logic,it pwned joo. casters want money&luxury(neutral/evil) too or simply to help others(good).so the end realistic&rational result is that this is inventiable,and prolly happens faster than OUR industrial revolution. I've rarely seen someone with English as a second language speak so terribly on these boards. So, unfortunately, you are probably a "native" english speaker. I can barely understand you. Magic makes the world a modern economy? How does it do this?
Mister Mayhem 10-09-04, 06:41 PM	Magic makes the world a modern economy? How does it do this? Pretty easily. In a high magic world, there is magic that can do everything that our modern technology can do - and a heck of a lot more. The aformentioned create food spell, for example. Now, I don't like, or play in, high magic worlds, as a rule, but somewhere with as much magic kicking around the place as the Forgotten Realms has easily got the wherewithal to do anything we can do today - except even more efficiently. Mind you, the effects of all this available magic are never really delved into by the writers - never do they say "we can have a city this big because of the magic 'everlasting grainsilo' created by the council of wizardry, but if you are going to play in a game in which magic is so prevalent, its just taken for granted, the same way modern city gazetters do not feel greatly compelled to explain how all the food sitting in your larder got their.
funnymanmike 10-09-04, 07:18 PM	nah, realism goes out the window for me, what do you consider to be real in a fantisy world? with fireballs, and dragons anythings possible
Cantankerous 10-09-04, 07:21 PM	its illogical not too.there are good clerics,they have no real choice if they want to remain as such. and gasp magic makes the world a modern economy,the peasents have to do none-farming to survive!then the increases in creativite jobs are exponentiol.and the world becomes insanely magic rich within decadess. i love logic,it pwned joo. casters want money&luxury(neutral/evil) too or simply to help others(good).so the end realistic&rational result is that this is inventiable,and prolly happens faster than OUR industrial revolution. Can somone translate this into english? If I'm getting the jist of this Leet jumble it's illogical not to use the completely unreasonable amount of magic that would have to be used to just keep the populous fed to make a game seem more reasonable, or as the starter of this thread put it, more realistic? Is that it? And what in the Hell is i love logic,it pwned joo. this in specific? pwned joo? Is that even proper Leet speak? Isshia
sambudak 10-09-04, 07:37 PM	Can somone translate this into english? If I'm getting the jist of this Leet jumble it's illogical not to use the completely unreasonable amount of magic that would have to be used to just keep the populous fed to make a game seem more reasonable, or as the starter of this thread put it, more realistic? Is that it? And what in the Hell is this in specific? pwned joo? Is that even proper Leet speak? Isshia Despite a lack of coherancy, what he's getting at is in his game he can use any kind of busted logic he wants, and I agree. I don't even really like D&D all that much, but even I can see past my own nose. Arrogance is sorta ugly, as a rule most folks play nice to avoid showin' their ass. You Cankertous, or whatever, are showing a mighty big 'ol red baboon backside. Sam
wereooze 10-09-04, 07:39 PM	PWNED is certainly 733t-speak, but I think 'joo' is just an anti-semetic comment :smirk:
Cantankerous 10-09-04, 07:57 PM	Sam ol' boy, I give back what is given to me. When someone takes a swipe at me, I take one right back. If you don't like it, stick it in your ear. Now, the discussion in this thread was concerning how to bring a greater level of reasonability, or reality, into the game. I agree the term reality doesn't work here, but what is reasonable IS supposedly one of the things being aimed for, thus the presence of any rules at all (instead of just DC super heroing the whole thing), and thus if you want a higher level of reasonability you do such and such. How friggin hard is it to understand that I disagree with a premis that says you should use busted logic in order to acheive a higher level of reasonability? Isshia
Hugin 10-09-04, 08:39 PM	by Cantankerous Realism is a bad term for it. Realism has no place in a fantasy game, it abrogates the entire mood. I agree realism is not the greatest term for it, but it certainly isn't bad, and to say it has NO PLACE in a fantasy game? Perhaps you should have enlightened many a great fantasy writer, such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard! Their worlds were full of "realism" and believablity; if they didn't then all care for what happened to the heros would go out the literary window. How can you expect a player to roleplay if he gains no sense of the "reality" surrounding the character he plays? All it becomes is a glorified risk game where the player thinks only of the rules and not about how his character's actions effect the world around him. As for the original post's concerns, the amount of reality that a group tries to incorporate into the game's rules is up to them and their tastes. So, back to the topic: Post here about realism in your game. I personally like to have as much realism IMCs as feasible with the d20 system. OTOH, being a fantasy game, there needs to be allowances such as "fantasy physics" where it is better NOT to go into too much examination of details (e.g. would this tower really be structurally sound?).
DougC 10-09-04, 08:46 PM	A survey Do you have realism in your game and how much???? I recently have added some : Examples 1) I demand some training in the course of level advancement . Pc fighters must train for example in some barracks at least once a weak. 2)I made a special armor rating that indicates the amount of damage armor can endure till mending. Post here about realism in your game. The way that I add a taste of realism to my fantasy medieval campaign world is by using A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe from Expeditious Retreat Press. It works if you want to base your game on Medieval Europe. If I want to add a taste of realism to other campaign worlds that I might be working on is to do research, find out as much about whatever I'm wanting to base the world on as I can, take what I like & what I believe or know that my players will like, and leave the rest. :)
Lina_Inverse 10-09-04, 09:26 PM	Can somone translate this into english? If I'm getting the jist of this Leet jumble it's illogical not to use the completely unreasonable amount of magic that would have to be used to just keep the populous fed to make a game seem more reasonable, or as the starter of this thread put it, more realistic? Is that it? And what in the Hell is this in specific? pwned joo? Is that even proper Leet speak? Isshia pwned joo,means pwned you.yes its semi leet speak. but anyways,the human mind works mostly the same in D&D as on earth.hence the moment they gain access to the ability to create these items that improve there lives they will.have you ever seen someone not make a technological device because it wasnt logical/reasonable/rational to do so?in D&D there are people who have good alingments who must maintain these alingments or lose there jobs(good clerics).most humans dont like loseing there job,those people will by there nature try to improve the lot of the masses(whose lives sucked in the dark ages),if this means burning a few points of exp to feed several THOUSAND people per day well good is about sacrafice of self for others.as such these people would think nothing of it.since these items are permanet eventully enough will exist to feed the populace entirely,the initial accumulation might be slow but its invevitable.once the entire population can be fed without needing as many farmers a more modern society will devolp,more people will go to magical studies to improve there lives further.this causes the growth of magical research and items to increase exponentiolly untill it hits a peak when most people are working on such.
MidgardFrostburn 10-09-04, 10:40 PM	The best campaigns we've had started at 1st level and went up. The players fought hard and learned hard for what the got and received and we made it more realistic by adjusting treasure/cr/ and experience allowances per encounter. I never fudge the dice, I don't let them live cause I feel sorry for them and I don't kill them for being dorks. Realism can effect every level of the game and I try to incorporate many elements from training on some issues to engaging in lively but realistic story telling. There is much you can do. Personally I use low-magic settings and try to maintain some sort of historical accuracy.
sambudak 10-09-04, 11:07 PM	Sam ol' boy, I give back what is given to me. When someone takes a swipe at me, I take one right back. If you don't like it, stick it in your ear. Now, the discussion in this thread was concerning how to bring a greater level of reasonability, or reality, into the game. I agree the term reality doesn't work here, but what is reasonable IS supposedly one of the things being aimed for, thus the presence of any rules at all (instead of just DC super heroing the whole thing), and thus if you want a higher level of reasonability you do such and such. How friggin hard is it to understand that I disagree with a premis that says you should use busted logic in order to acheive a higher level of reasonability? Isshia I guess my desire to help the underdog got the best of me there. The futility of even discussing the subject with someone apparently developmentally disabled is also a factor. Sorry 'bout what I said regarding your caboose. That said, maybe the problem is really what level of crapola one can just write-off mentally and still RP at all. I had a GM that wanted our PCs to consider insuring our ship. What in the h*ll was with that? I game as an escape, for fun, and vicarious mass murder. Shopping for a policy and seeing the diffulty of Waterdeep having a supportable population doesn't factor-- unless I'm trying to be irritating. Sam
Lord Stigius 10-10-04, 03:52 AM	I see two levels of 'realism' in D&D - one I like and one I try to steer clear from. While planning my campaign world, I created is as a high magic one. I have even tweaked the prices of commodities vs. the prices of magic items to the level where a sheep and a potion of CLW are of the same price. In effect lords can afford to equip even file-and-rank soldiers with some magics. But the world is not fed by magic - I wanted to keep some 'medieval' feeling. While creating the town/city which serves as the base of my PCs, I looked at the crop productivity of late 15th century and based the population on it (with the assumption that some townspeople, while living within the walls, still work the fields outside.) My PCs are well aware of the prices, the comunity needs etc. The wizard, being a heir to this town's lord, get used to calculating all the item prices as "yearly incoe from X number of sheeps' (wool is the most important trade resource of the duchy). She gets to worry about the crops, droughts, floods etc. In these terms my world is realistic. But there is another kind of realism: Are HPs realistic? Heck no. IRL every person could be killed with a well-aimed hit with a dagger. Good luck killing this way any character but a 1st level wizard, we all know it. But HPs work within the game. Is it realistic that an unarmed, unarmored person goes toe to toe with the one with armor and weapon? No. But it works within the game. (I may hate monks, but it's the matter of my personal hate). The very existence of dragons is unrealistic, if that matters. Training to advance - my PCs do this on their own accord, but forcing them does not work well. If a PC suddenly decides to take a level in wizard, I prefer to intertwine retroactively some 'wizardry schooling' into his background rather than to force him to stay in town for two yers of game time.Same with feats and skills. While typing these words, I'm past a night with 3 hours of sleep. Still, after having a coffe, I'm sitting in my office and working as normal (i.e. half time working, half time posting here :D ). But if my 18 Con, 20 level paladin has slept only, say, 6 hours last night, he is going to be "fatigued, cannot charge or run'. That's about realism.
Cantankerous 10-10-04, 06:24 AM	*Sigh* One more try. The difference between realism and reasonbility and what is implied. A realistic world is one that conforms to ALL of the elements we can infer into it from experience of our own world and reality. THAT is what is real. If physics is indfferent or abrogated as it is in the writings of such luminaries as Tolkien, Burroughs and Howard, then REALISM becomes the anachronism. If such basic functions as gravity and it's interactions with reality are skewed (like with the possibility of flying dragons and the like) then what functions are dependable? Good fanatsy writers stay away from realism but they do court reasonability. If the world seems reasonably sane in most respects then ok, why not? It is a place that can be identified with and thus the characters in it can be identified with, making it interesting. Flinging fireballs is not realistic, but it can be reasonable when the fireball defacto replaces heavy weapon x. Dragons are reasonable when they are used as a replacement for heavy armored fighting vehicle Y. They though have nothing to do with realism, nor does a world that includes them. Is it reasonable to assume that the entire population is being fed by the gods? To my way of thinking, absolutely not! That Cleric A can use magic to accomplish the feeding of himself and others, or that a Wonderous Divine Item can do likewise is immaterial. There is a causality with energy and effect. What do the gods seek of man? The most common answer in game terms is simply ; faith, worship. Yes? But the Forgotten Realms is an EXTREMELY irreligious place. There are a few small temples in any given city with a bare few worshipers each, when compared to the populations, yet the gods are expected to foot the bill (the energies involved are divine, part of that pool of energy that is controlled by the gods, at least to some extent) for feeding the masses? What? That has to be the most lame brained thing I've heard in ages. The topic of this thread is what can you do to make the game seem or feel more realistic. I've personally simply inserted the term reasonable for realistic as it seems to me a better fit, but otherwise I've been talking about what is reasonable. So, it is then being argued that it is reasonable for the gods to feed multitudes of unbelievers when they themselves are so jealous of their perogitives in every other manner? I simply do NOT see it happening in any kind of reasonable (much less realistic) framework. Isshia
Cantankerous 10-10-04, 06:24 AM	I guess my desire to help the underdog got the best of me there. The futility of even discussing the subject with someone apparently developmentally disabled is also a factor. Sorry 'bout what I said regarding your caboose. Sam Sammy, your hypocrisy is showing. Isshia
sambudak 10-10-04, 04:38 PM	Sammy, your hypocrisy is showing. Isshia Yep, I like to let it out to poop on the floor once in awhile. Then I hit and yell, "Bad, bad hypocrisy!" I rub its nose in the stinky pile of poo and wonder what did I ever get one for?
Cantankerous 10-10-04, 04:41 PM	Yep, I like to let it out to poop on the floor once in awhile. Then I hit and yell, "Bad, bad hypocrisy!" I rub its nose in the stinky pile of poo and wonder what did I ever get one for? :bow: Good one Sam. Isshia
VirgilCaine 10-10-04, 11:00 PM	Pretty easily. In a high magic world, there is magic that can do everything that our modern technology can do - and a heck of a lot more. Yes, in a high magic world. Thats a given. But by the core rules, it doesn't change a lot of things.
Cindre2000 10-10-04, 11:37 PM	Somethings I do to make my campaign world more realistic- I have a set progression by age and progression for the levels of random NPC's. Therefore, when the party is lvl 1, most of the guards they meet are lvl 2 or even 3. When they are lvl 10, it is the same, and they will not meet meet elite 10th level guards unless they are retired adventurers. I try to add racial and social restrictions/traits into the game. I also let the game flow at a slightly slower pace. It can take the party several weeks to reach a destination, and then several months to find a adventure.
Razaiel 10-11-04, 12:14 AM	Well if I wanted realism in my game I sure wouldn't be playing D&D. For there to be realism the HP system would have to go; all weapons would effectively be Wounding weapons; arrows stuck in bodies would have to be removed or the wound would get infected; the only creatures would be humanoids, animals and vermin; there would be no magic, etc. There is a reason that this is a fantasy game, not a realistic game. Realism is all fine and good in the real world, but I play D&D to escape from the day to day drudgery of the real world.
The Shaman 10-11-04, 03:07 AM	Well if I wanted realism in my game I sure wouldn't be playing D&D. For there to be realism the HP system would have to go; all weapons would effectively be Wounding weapons; arrows stuck in bodies would have to be removed or the wound would get infected; the only creatures would be humanoids, animals and vermin; there would be no magic, etc. There is a reason that this is a fantasy game, not a realistic game. Realism is all fine and good in the real world, but I play D&D to escape from the day to day drudgery of the real world. Razaiel, I think you may be confusing two ideas here: making the mechanics of the game "realistic," and giving the game world depth through internal logic. The mechanics of the game are an abstraction intended to make collaborative storytelling possible, nothing more or less. The d20 "engine" is not meant to simulate life - it's meant to resolve the element of chance in free-form storytelling. I don't think that Xaoc was thinking of this at all in the original post. Rather, I think that Xaoc and most of the other posters in the thread are using "realistic" to mean something along the lines of credible with respect to the setting itself: the sense that the distribution of humanoids and monsters and terrain have a consistent internal logic that may not be realistic but fosters a willing suspension of disbelief. Using the example of feeding a large population by magic, that may work fine for some GMs and players but would leave others (like me) unimpressed - while it may seem feasible under the RAW (though anyone casting dispel magic or Mordenkainen's disjunction could single-handedly cause a terrific famine), it is a step or two beyond the realm of the credible for others. IMX a setting is more credible, more immersive, if it bears some relationship to the knowledge and experiences of the players. Even if the players have never been within 50 miles of anything more agricultural than a community garden or the produce section of the supermarket, most have a sense of the life of a farmer. It's relatively easy for the players to understand the lives of farmers in the game world and their role in the imaginary society of the campaign - eliminating or drastically reducing farming as an activity moves beyond the players' experience, and removes both a mental and emotional connection to the cycle of life in the game world. Rather than postulating cities routinely fed by clerical magic, I prefer to imagine the world of farmers and herders where the occasional owlbear or troll may appear. I believe this is a connection the players will understand both intellectually and viscerally, and that heightens the experience of the game. Would I never allow clerics to feed the populace in time of famine? Of course not - that's an intereting plot hook. But I wouldn't make it routine, not necessarily because of realism but rather the perception of the verisimilitude of the game world.
Mister Mayhem 10-11-04, 03:08 AM	Yes, in a high magic world. Thats a given. But by the core rules, it doesn't change a lot of things. Whats your point, V? This part of the discussion arose over the size of cities in Forgotten Realms, not in core.
Jallis 370 10-11-04, 05:54 AM	I only use realism to the point where it becomes too slow to use. I don't bother with one weeks training, but I assume they practice before they go to sleep after going up a level, so they can't advance before they have slept uninterrupted. I use realism when the pc's are talking to npc's. And We usually speak Norwegian but when the only language they can communicate with is common they have to speak english. Makes it a bit fun when the pc's are trying to find the right language.
Al2902 10-11-04, 07:00 AM	London, one of THE great cities of the pre & post-Rennaissance era, in the 1340's had a population less than one quarter the size of Waterdeep's much smaller summer population and even the mighty cities of Rome and Paris, in the very center of the most fertile regions in Europe, barely eclipsed Waterdeep's population through out most of their history; and both were supported by farming populations hundreds of times larger than what is mentioned for Waterdeep. At the peak of the Roman Empire (c.100 AD), Rome is said to have reached one million, and is certainly agreed to have exceeded 700,000. Nor was it is the only large metropolis of the Roman Empire: Alexandria had between 500,000 and 700,000 inhabitants; Antioch, Ephesus and Carthage had populations between quarter and half a million, and other cities in the Roman East (Smyrna, Pergamum etc.) had roughly one hundred thousand inhabitants. Constantinople, in the heyday of the Byzantine Empire, certainly exceeded one million. It is estimated that the Roman Empire had about a 4:1 ratio in terms of countryside: city (of a total population of 65m, some 13m were urbanised) making it by far the most urbanised pre-Renaissance civilisation. How does this compare with Waterdeep? Presumably it imports much of its food, and/or relies on magic. I must confess that I'm more knowledgeable about ancient Rome than the Forgotten Realms :)
Razaiel 10-11-04, 01:17 PM	Razaiel, I think you may be confusing two ideas here: making the mechanics of the game "realistic," and giving the game world depth through internal logic. The mechanics of the game are an abstraction intended to make collaborative storytelling possible, nothing more or less. The d20 "engine" is not meant to simulate life - it's meant to resolve the element of chance in free-form storytelling. I don't think that Xaoc was thinking of this at all in the original post. Rather, I think that Xaoc and most of the other posters in the thread are using "realistic" to mean something along the lines of credible with respect to the setting itself: the sense that the distribution of humanoids and monsters and terrain have a consistent internal logic that may not be realistic but fosters a willing suspension of disbelief. Using the example of feeding a large population by magic, that may work fine for some GMs and players but would leave others (like me) unimpressed - while it may seem feasible under the RAW (though anyone casting dispel magic or Mordenkainen's disjunction could single-handedly cause a terrific famine), it is a step or two beyond the realm of the credible for others. IMX a setting is more credible, more immersive, if it bears some relationship to the knowledge and experiences of the players. Even if the players have never been within 50 miles of anything more agricultural than a community garden or the produce section of the supermarket, most have a sense of the life of a farmer. It's relatively easy for the players to understand the lives of farmers in the game world and their role in the imaginary society of the campaign - eliminating or drastically reducing farming as an activity moves beyond the players' experience, and removes both a mental and emotional connection to the cycle of life in the game world. Rather than postulating cities routinely fed by clerical magic, I prefer to imagine the world of farmers and herders where the occasional owlbear or troll may appear. I believe this is a connection the players will understand both intellectually and viscerally, and that heightens the experience of the game. Would I never allow clerics to feed the populace in time of famine? Of course not - that's an intereting plot hook. But I wouldn't make it routine, not necessarily because of realism but rather the perception of the verisimilitude of the game world. My bad, I thought that the discussion for realism in a campaign setting was over. Since FR is a very unrealistic setting in regards to population centers and their farming communities, plus the amount of evil monsters compared to civilized folk. I do play in FR, but I usually gloss over these inconsistencies unless they are going to become a problem for the players, in which case I will modify the population centers and farming communities until they make a little more sense. The question as to what the excess population of Waterdeep does with their time has never come up in any of my campaigns, but it would be a hard question to answer, since I don't think that anyone knows what it is that they do. They can't all be peasants that don't perform some useful function. As far as good aligned clerics providing free food to everyone; well, that is a harder question to answer. Being good is more than not doing evil, it requires going out of your way to help those in need, and sacrificing for the greater good. Now in a high magic campaign (as FR is), one would think that there would be more spellcasters (both arcane and divine) that would be able to provide (for a fee) magical items that would function like technological inventions that we have in our day and age. For example, why wouldn't there be elevator like contraptions using Tenser's Floating Disk, or food dispensers like a vending machine that would use Create Food and Water and Prestidigation, or anything else that you can think of. If there are even 50 people in a metropolitan area that have an Intelligence score above 10, then there should be a glut of inventions that will ease everyday life. But that's just my two cents.
The Shaman 10-11-04, 02:53 PM	Now in a high magic campaign (as FR is), one would think that there would be more spellcasters (both arcane and divine) that would be able to provide (for a fee) magical items that would function like technological inventions that we have in our day and age....If there are even 50 people in a metropolitan area that have an Intelligence score above 10, then there should be a glut of inventions that will ease everyday life. But that's just my two cents. I agree. I think that's one of the best arguments in favor of what are frequently called "low-magic" games - perhaps "rare magic" might be better term to describe it. If one wants to keep the feel of magic as something mysterious and uncommon, it's necessary to lower the frequency of spellcasters and reduce the number of magic items. In my games magic items tend to be quite rare and I heavily nerfed the item creation rules - for my new setting I'm also reducing the number of spellcasting classes - no paladins, a spell-less ranger variant, and a bard prestige class (though I'd like a spell-less variant of that as well). While some players might think this lowers the power-level of the game, in my experience it actually increases it quite a bit - when magic items are rare, spellcasters become more important, and when spellcasters are rare, a PC spellcaster is truly formidable. It also means that cities lie in networks of market towns fed by hundreds of farming villages, that areas not in agriculture for whatever reason depend on grazing or hunting and gathering, and so on. Another two cents for the pot.
VirgilCaine 10-12-04, 09:04 AM	While some players might think this lowers the power-level of the game, in my experience it actually increases it quite a bit - when magic items are rare, spellcasters become more important, and when spellcasters are rare, a PC spellcaster is truly formidable. It also means that cities lie in networks of market towns fed by hundreds of farming villages, that areas not in agriculture for whatever reason depend on grazing or hunting and gathering, and so on. Another two cents for the pot. Yes, it makes the casters uber-powerful. And everyone else in the party isn't as powerful because there are so few magic items. Great, huh?
The Shaman 10-12-04, 10:27 AM	Yes, it makes the casters uber-powerful. And everyone else in the party isn't as powerful because there are so few magic items. Great, huh? Yes, IMX, it is plenty great. If I understand you correctly, you believe fighters and rogues are at a disadvantage unless magic items are abundant to offset the "uber-powerful" spellcasters. However, I think that with appropriate encounter design that takes into account class limitations, this is not the case at all. In particular a spellcaster without magic items such as wands or abundant scrolls is limited to spell-slots-per-day; metamagic feats can further reduce the number of spells available. This means that spellcasters must be very careful in their spell selection each day and judicious in their use. Challenging encounters force spellcasters to decide whether or not they can afford to use their spells: casting too many spells too soon or not casting spells when they are needed becomes part of the challenge of running a spellcaster. So what's to keep players from constantly withdrawing from encounters to rest and refit, and therefore making spellcasters too influential in the game? I use dynamic encounters - if the adventurers fall back too often, then they risk the BBEG, treasure, monsters, &c. getting away. For example, the adventurers who decide to retreat to town rather than risk another encounter in a goblins' lair may find the goblins have decamped when they return, taking the town priest's sacred chalice and the daughter of the reeve with them. I also make encounters in which magic can only accomplish so much: attacks from different directions, wave attacks, many-small instead of one-large opponents, challenging terrain, and so on all affect the power of magic to influence the outcome of an encounter. Then there are encounters that require the adventurers to use magic that's not combat-related: for example, speak with dead might be needed to get an important clue about the missing girl in the goblin encounter above. Spellcasters who only load up on buffs and fireballs will be of little use to the adventurers in what should be (and is, in my games) one of their most important roles: magical intelligence gathering. Based on my own experience as a GM, I just can't buy into the argument that spellcasters are too powerful. I create challenging encounters for the adventurers that force spellcasters to make many choices. This also means that responsibility must be shared by all party members, as the spellcasters cannot be expected to carry the party all the time. For whatever it's worth, I've never had the player of a fighter or a rogue complain that they didn't have enough to do in the games I run.
eudas 10-12-04, 10:55 AM	pwned joo,means pwned you.yes its semi leet speak. but anyways,the human mind works mostly the same in D&D as on earth.hence the moment they gain access to the ability to create these items that improve there lives they will.have you ever seen someone not make a technological device because it wasnt logical/reasonable/rational to do so?in D&D there are people who have good alingments who must maintain these alingments or lose there jobs(good clerics).most humans dont like loseing there job,those people will by there nature try to improve the lot of the masses(whose lives sucked in the dark ages),if this means burning a few points of exp to feed several THOUSAND people per day well good is about sacrafice of self for others.as such these people would think nothing of it.since these items are permanet eventully enough will exist to feed the populace entirely,the initial accumulation might be slow but its invevitable.once the entire population can be fed without needing as many farmers a more modern society will devolp,more people will go to magical studies to improve there lives further.this causes the growth of magical research and items to increase exponentiolly untill it hits a peak when most people are working on such. 1. yes, "pwned joo" == "owned you". 15 year old testosterone-laden speech. 2. i'd just like to point out, that LG people don't do good things just because they would "lose their job", they do them because they honestly believe in what they're doing and trying to make a difference in the world. 3. the rest of this is a good point about the magical research and advancement etc. eudas
Cantankerous 10-12-04, 11:14 AM	Actually, in every game I've ever seen (much less the ones I've DMed) even though Wizards are rarer than hens teeth most of the time compared to other classes, they are by no means the most powerful class. Instead, they tend to be the most paranoid class as they never know when the populous will rise up against them and "the Great Burnings" will recommence. If a PC mage starts flaunting their abilities they may well find themselves the object of an angry mob who will blame them first for everything from their bunions to the drought to too much rain near the harvest to the missing child from last month, even if the PC has just hit town. When you are out numbered by thousands to one, no matter how powerful you think you are, your ass is grass for the lawn mower, especially when you consider that you sure as heck aren't the only adventurer out there and they'll (knowing that YOU'VE got magic items..YAAAAY!) be the ones the towns folk use to get rid of your devil worshipping (even if you are personally LG and a saint of a person) backside. Keeping Wizards in check in a magic rare (I like that term) game is essentially an exercise in common sense, and not a challenging one at that, and yet it makes them a wonderful role playing vehicle. Isshia
VirgilCaine 10-12-04, 11:57 AM	Yes, IMX, it is plenty great. I just don't like screwing with the magic level. It's that simple. You can enjoy it all you want, but I'll never be comfortable with trying to go against the grain of the system.