Immersive-relevant Realism

[Domhnall]

Many CRPGers (especially Modders) seem to be interested in CRPGs being more Realistic. Many times on CPRG forums, a heated little spat will result between those who do and don’t want realism. I wrote this for a RPG development forum called The Forge (which some of you are aware of) concerning the philosophy of my own Paper-n-Dice ("pnd") RPG, and wanted to share it as a lengthy defense of why Realism is a worthwhile goal. Realism’s applicability to CPRGs is (arguably) weaker than for pnd games in that CRPGs are (again, arguably) not, by their nature, as immersive as pnd RPGs. But, insofar as one seeks immersion in a CRPG, Realism aids it.

 

I don't have time to rewrite it to deal with pnd-RPG/CRPG differences, and I'm only including part of it here. For the even (painfully) longer version (and debate thereafter), here’s the link:

 

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=14637.0

 

And, I recommend The Forge to anyone serious about creating their own RPG. Be warned, however, they tolerate no nonsense over there.

 

 

All of the Tolkien quotes are from On Fairy Stories in The Tolkien Reader, (Ballantine).

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“Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. ” p.54

 

People have asked me countless times over the years of my system’s development, “why bother making a system with a strong emphasis on realism?” Those who comprehend the issue the least will say “It’s fantasy ! Why are you even discussing “realism”? These people believe that the phrase “realistic fantasy” is a contradiction in terms. This comes from a misunderstanding of what we mean by ‘fantasy.’ ‘Fantasy’ here does not mean unrealistic or unreasonable, rather “different” or “alternate.”

 

To others more versed in current role playing trends, however, the issue is not that confused. Various RPG creators have made systems with realism in mind. The trend is even extending itself into computer RPGs where, for example, the Elder Scrolls forums have a strong half of the population asking for a realistic world with “real” NPCs, events, combat, etc. for their next game.

 

However, a realistic system is not justifiable just for realism’s sake. Who really cares about the minutia of average running speeds, the actual time required to reload a crossbow, or that a shield is a far better defense than mere parrying when the participants want to role play epic heroes? Rather, it’s what (properly applied) realism facilitates that makes it worthwhile—Immersion. A gaming world closely aligned to the real one (in relevant categories and methods) strengthens the potential relational depth between the players and their characters, and the world that those characters inhabit.

 

I do not assert (necessarily) that the more closely aligned the game world is to the real one the deeper the immersion. It is not a 1:1 correlation. It’s quite possible to have a realistic gaming world (where a wealth of research has produced perfect harmony with the facts of our world) with no deeper immersion than in a wildly uninformed one. A world with accurate details does not by itself draw in an audience into the tale inside that world. Only a quality tale (with mature participants allowing that tale to flourish) can generate immersion. But even a great tale with excellent participants played within a role playing system that ignores the relevant aspects of realism diminishes the immersion that could have occurred within a realistic one.

 

For those interested in immersive role playing, I’d like to propose this guiding principle—Immersive-Relevant Realism (IRR) : Factually informed, logical coherence concerning elements that affect the way the participants relate to the game world, to their own characters, and to other characters.

 

Most participants agree that fantasy worlds would be unenjoyable if there was nothing but nonsense and chaos. A stable, logical structure is required in order to have any coherent story. “Fantasy worlds” are called such simply because they are not the world that we happen to inhabit, possessing different phenomena and histories than we have in ours. Tolkien refers to them as “Secondary Worlds”. Fantasy Secondary Worlds are Ancient/Medieval fictions—possessing elements from our mythologies and legends like magic, monsters, demonic forces, etc. that our world assumes to be absent. But they are still logical, coherent worlds.

 

So, how does realism relate to immersion? Through believability. But isn’t belief in a Secondary World a volitional act on the part of the participants? Yes, it is. We are (for our purposes) “role playing” in these fictions and therefore choosing to suspend our disbelief in their “unrealness”. The GM (traditionally) constructs a world and a tale, and we choose to psychologically “enter” it.

 

"What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true:' it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside . " p. 37

 

The less that we must strain our sensibilities (our own experiences and expectations of “life”), the easier it is to maintain the belief-link with that fiction. Conversely, the more extravagant the setting (the further the game is from reality), the weaker our potential link to our/other characters in that world. It’s possible to imagine any (logically possible) scenarios and actions. But, the more exorbitant the thing imagined, the less plausible it seems to us. Psychologically we can make leaps into ridiculous scenarios, but this requires far more effort than imagining the plausible, thus we are left fighting back disbelief from the “outside” instead of enjoying the imagined from the “inside”.

 

“The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed .” P. 37

 

Tolkien is using two categories of ‘belief’ here, natural and forced. There is the tale that pulls us into the world, generating a genuine plausibility (as a work like Tolkien’s accomplishes). But, there is also the poorly constructed tale which we don’t really buy, but can play along with and “force” our own belief.

 

It’s possible to role play in both types, even in the poorest of tales. For example, a child approaches you and says “Let’s role play, I wanna GM you… OK, there’s this cave, and there’s a dragon. The dragon attacks and you kill him.” If by “kindliness” you are placating the child and “role playing” with him, you are not naturally, smoothly suspending disbelief because of an immersive tale. You can still instantly envision a cave and a dragon, and react as the child would like, but it is all for the sake of the child’s feelings. To a lesser degree this is what we are doing when we role play in games that lack gritty believability. We can “play along” believe, but this is nothing like immersionist belief.

 

“Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more subcreative; but at any rate it is found in practice that ‘the inner consistency of reality’ is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of ‘reality’ with more ‘sober’ material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely 'fanciful.' " p.48

 

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[KzinistZerg]

Having read all of that, I have to say I agree. One of the things people often miss about fantasy is that it blends with science fiction. These rules go for sci-fi as well: the very best science fiction books are totally (or very closely so) comprised of true, reserached, and findable science.

 

Knowing that and having seen it myself, I can wholeheartedly agree with the above post.

[cactoblasta]

I think in some ways it's the perception of realism that is essential more than the reality of realism.

 

So long as you appeal to the person's sense of dramatic reality you should be fine. What I mean by this is that a hero shouldn't, for example, be slain by a single sword-blow. It's just not perceived as real that someone who can save the world will be stopped by a single blow, regardless of how realistic it may be in 21st century Earth. But someone having to rest after sprinting is probably going to be appealingly realistic, because it reminds us that the character is human.

 

In many ways this perception of realism is tied to difficulty - so long as the difficulty is managable, realism is desirable. But where a game becomes so hard that death appears inevitable, and that the person themself could do as good a job as the hero they're pretending to be, that sucks out the immersion. After all, why bother being someone else if that someone cannot cope with their world without constant attention and restarts?