jjjalljs

I think that's a lot of interesting stuff you could explore, but the odds of doing that when the GM is running on unexamined defaults are slim.

I didn't use the word realistic. I called it unsatisfying.

Also, it's kind of tired to be like "oh you want rEaLiSm in your game about elf magic??". You know what people mean when they say that. Given the premises presented, nothing is contradictory enough to break suspension of disbelief. People use "realistic" as a shorthand. Sometimes people use "Verisimilitude" for this.

Having NPCs react reasonably in some cases (eg: scripted encounters, some law breaking) and not in others is jarring. You see the NPCs standing around the tavern having a chat and you go, "That's a reasonable scene. I can imagine this." Then you explode one of them, and they all run around in a panic. Still pretty reasonable. Follows from the premises given. But then you run away and come back, and all of them are back to drinking and chatting. All of them except the one you exploded, who's still a bloody mess on the floor. For some people, such as myself, this is too much. It's too high a contrast, and it foregrounds the limits of the game too much to easily suspend disbelief.

I don’t know what to say. Are you trying to say it clashes with the design? Are you saying every game should have every feature and ‘StarCraft’ should have the nemesis system from the ‘shadow of’ games? I don’t get it.

I don't feel like you tried very hard to "get it".

The game has a stealth and murder system you're encouraged to use. I'd like for them to have gone a little further with it. The NPCs sometimes look for you if you fire from stealth, but it's janky. The rest of the game is generally pretty immersive-sim, but the wheels fall off if you play one of the main playstyles. Unsatisfying.

I'm not a game developer and I expect you aren't either, so I don't know how complex it would be to make the responses to stealth more robust. Maybe add a "There's been a murder!" state to scenes. But they did a lot of other stuff to cover more niche scenarios, so it wouldn't be out of character.

I'm still kind of disappointed and irritated about an old D&D group. The guy ran a game that was literally patriarchy.

There was a king who died. He had a daughter, who was ruling competently presently. But he also had an infant son. Now a civil war is brewing because some people want the son on the throne, because that's the male heir.

And he just played it straight and seemed to expect us to be like "Oh, obviously the son has a legitimate claim to the throne. and also absolute monarchy is unremarkable". To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of "no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal".

It was a pretty fleshed out setting in terms of details and subfactions, but the core of it was just so very basic and unexamined. No one else seemed to give a shit, though. I did not gel with that group.

Meanwhile, some time before that I'd had a blast running a game. The players came upon an anarchist collective that had overthrown the old despot, but now there are counter-revolutionaries lurking that want to return the now undead tyrant to the throne. Also the neighboring state is rattling their sabers because they ideologically do not approve of a state without a king.

So I guess the lesson is games are better when you vibe with the group?

That sucks. Glad I moved to Linux.

While that is fascinating and worth considering, I think the way it's implemented in the video games is kind of unsatisfying. Specifically, how the NPCs just go back to their idle routine even if that means standing casually on the bodies of their friends. For days.

The "for days" part is also particular to DnD. You can sleep for days while the world remains static. The rite of thorns never completes. The prisoners are never executed. Not even if you kill half the guards and take a snooze.

I think the Batman video games did a better job of NPCs freaking out and not just calming back down, but most games don't invest in that.

Also bg3 specifically let's you teleport to safety once you're 30 meters away, which is extra cheesy.

Musk is scum and I'm eagerly awaiting the day he's no longer shitting up the world.

I'm surprised there isn't more "And then someone followed the ICE agents home and shot them dead in their driveway" happening yet.

Be funny if that did happen, and the jury refused to indict. I think our faith in institutions are so low that that's plausible, now.

replaced with a government that serves the will of its citizens.

What are we going to do about the 20 to 40 percent of people who support ICE and other horrors?

edit for clarity: replace "this" with concrete

I've had players do that kind of counter-productive behavior. I usually tell them that we're here to engage with the game's premise. If the game's premise was "we're going to rob a bank", your character needs to have reasons to engage with that. You can write a book about Jimmy the Marketer that works a 9 to 5 and has a rich social life, but that's not what we're here to explore.

If i'm running the game, I really make sure to hammer on this stuff during session 0. I also don't typically approve "you all met in a tavern" setups. Your characters should have history together when we start. I don't want to have to handwave "wait, why would i trust this guy I just met to take first watch?" again

Older editions had stuff like "small characters are harder to hit, so they get +1 AC. But then it's weird they have a hard time hitting each other, so they get a +1 to-hit, too".

Trying to simulate reality gets wacky real fast, and quickly becomes more work than it's worth.

Yeah dnd has quirks that aggravate that problem. Fighting at full capacity until you drop dead, for one. Limited options for fighting defensively (bg3 took out the dodge action).

Some stuff you can win by being really tedious. Assassin sneak attack, then run until you reset the fight and repeat. Real Dm wouldnt allow that.

I don't think Microsoft makes great decisions. They're not as bad as Google, but it doesn't seem like they deliver what users want.

They'll probably spend billions on AI when users would rather just have a cheaper longer lasting device. But they gotta make maximum money, I guess.