Achieving a feeling of realism in D&D (or any other RPG) without making a horrible mess of gameplay

The RPG world is littered with the rotting remains of vain attempts to introduce realism. Critical hit tables, wacky initiative schemes, progressively debilitating damage charts: these are the tools of the gamer in search of a more immersive experience. All game systems, no matter how well designed, are simply models of reality – they take artistic license with the laws of physics in order to speed up and simplify game play. Like any model, the simplicity achieved is generally inversely proportional to the level of realism. The simpler the game system, the harder it is to suspend disbelief (reference: all of the fiery blog posts regarding 4th ed D&D’s reduced realism). Luckily, there’s an easy way out of this dilemma: a reality shift.

Instead of imagining our game world with the same laws of physics and nature as our own, with our game system as an imperfect approximation of those laws, why not imagine it with the game system as its actual laws of physics? Since we’re imagining a world inhabited by magical creatures in frequent contact with a host of fictional deities, why not go one step further and change the rules of the world to match those we’re playing with?

If we do this, instead of seeing the game rules and mechanics as an unfortunate and imperfect attempt to approximate reality, we can look at them as vital links to an alternate and parallel reality that has its very own laws of physics, all of them conveniently laid out for us in a mildly overpriced book. I call this mental exercise a “reality shift”. While it may seem to be nothing more than semantics at first, if you think a little deeper about it, you’ll see that it’s a dramatic shift in the way we design and interact with our game worlds, leading to an experience that is significantly more immersive.

We all live in a world in which no one breathes fire without the aid very strong booze, no one can teleport (yet, fingers crossed!) and there is, sadly, just one humanoid species around to live, love and fight with (ah, if only we could get some half-elf strippers…). We’re used to the rules that govern our universe and generally apply them unconsciously, but its basic characteristics wield profound influence on every aspect of our daily lives. If we were to change just one or two basic rules, the results would be staggering.

Yet most D&D campaign settings ignore the impact of magic and the power of PCs and NPCs to impact the world around them. They just paint a thin layer of magic over an otherwise conventional world, in which major and powerful characters are anomalies that, because they don’t plug directly into the fictional reality, remain on its surface. But in a world in which the rules of the game are the rules of reality the truly earth shattering powers some characters and monsters wield have always been around and will have had major political, economic, and cultural effects. Unless magic is new to a campaign setting, its presence will have influenced every aspect of society’s development. The basic structure of the D&D system, with character classes, levels, experience and hit points, and specific abilities with clear prerequisites and predictable effects, will make a number of our imaginary world’s characteristics very different from this one’s.

When put that way, the notion of trying to bridge the gap between the two realities seems a little too daunting. The possible differences are absolutely infinite. True, our universe is one of infinite and barely understood possibilities, and that with so many potential differences, unless we do simply treat magic and the game rules as an overlay on and model of our world, we’ll get lost in endless trivia. But if we make the simple assumption that unless otherwise dictated by the game rules, every aspect of our imaginary world is identical to our own, we can narrow our focus to simply those differences we have in front of us in print. This also gives us a model of how to proceed with analyzing how the game world would be different: just break out your players’ hand book and look at the chapters. Each of them describes a fundamental difference between the imaginary world we’re building and the real one that will have a significant impact.

The proliferation of humanoid “races” is the first major difference (I’ll refer to them as species, since that’s what they really are). Since they don’t exist in our world, their verified and often commonplace presence in the imaginary one will produce some differences in the way the world works. We need to ask ourselves what not only place each has in the world, but also how each fares in the competition for resources – why, for example, has this species managed to survive in a dangerous and competitive world? This question is especially critical for those races not generally included in the PC races. Since they have so many fewer classed heroes, won’t they be at a distinct disadvantage? How could goblins, for example, possibly survive the repeated bloody beat downs they receive at the hands of every low level party of adventurers that happens along? Each would have developed some interesting and perhaps unexpected ways of dealing with this sort of environmental pressure.

Another major category of differences comes from the existence of character classes. These discreet groupings of individual capability would enable individuals to categorize one another to an extent not possible in our own world. I used to resist the idea that characters would be able to tell if another character was a fighter, or a wizard, or a sorcerer, etc, and go positively out of my mind if players tried to talk to one another in character about classes, levels, and powers. Their characters would never see things this way, I argued. But this is a viewpoint born of treating the game system as a mere model. If we accept it as the characters’ reality, then we can understand that character classes are the norm of their world. A successful professional adventurer (or even an NPC retainer) would need to have the ability to determine what class another character was by observing him in action as a basic survival skill. If he were very familiar with the class, he might even be able to determine level from the powers he observed. This opens up a whole series of possible story telling possibilities, too: imagine the bard who masquerades as a high-level wizard, or more dangerously, the high level wizard who masquerades as a bard…

Other aspects of the game have could have major impacts as well: magic items, powers and rituals of sufficient power or utility could create whole economic systems around their provision or enable widespread empires that would be otherwise impossible and the combat and healing system would have a profound impact on its practitioners. Each of these areas is worthy of additional in depth analysis – check back here for my future posts about how to Reality Shift your campaign!

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