Forums » RP Discussion » Reality In Fantasy

When is too much too much? We all like a degree of reality in our roleplays, even fantasy ones. But how much reality is too much? Things like being punished for murder or theft, yeah that's obvious. But there are places that, in an attempt to stay close to their time period historically (even though they are fantasy), squander plot ideas, cause unneeded problems and too many rules.

So when is too much too much, and how much is just enough?

Just some topic to talk about.

Too much is variable, as are right and wrong. Ask one person, they'll tell you one thing. Ask another, and they'll give you something else. It's all a matter of person.

Personally, I think it's too much when someone creates a slave character from a culture that either didn't have slaves, or is the wrong skin tone for said slavery. Not all slaves were Africans. That just kind of ticks me off. It's stupid and empowers continued ignorance.

I think it really depends on the players and the tone of the roleplay.

But I've seen groups that have very strict guidelines about what is and isn't allowed to the point that it just didn't look like fun.

I prefer keeping historically accurate while blending in fantasy elements. For example, Ancient Rome. In the world from which my characters come in that time period, there is both a non-magical and magical heirarchy of power that works not unlike the twin consuls -- each has their own sphere of power. I keep all of my characters as realistic as possible so far as culture goes simply because it is a personal want of mine. I don't expect those I rp with to do the same, and I've even succesfully rped with modern characters. Just don't expect my Roman to know what a modern form of handshake is, or my Rus' beserker to have any idea of who Queen is.

Phros; I know what you mean. It's definitely all up to the person, which is why I started this topic; to see what everyone else's idea of it was.

Egil; Very understandable. I think that's a good balance of it all!

As for Darth...
Yes. I know exactly.

Bahahahahaahaha, I'm not Lance. I take it that all you caught was my avatar? Bahahaahahaha, that made my day. Thank you, madame.

Dur my failure. And yes. I'm used to seeing only Lance avatar-less. xD

(fixed :x)

There was one Star Wars roleplay group I joined for about a week that required members to have no interaction at all with people from any other Star Wars fanclub.

Celestina, going into that kind of detail, having to manage stocks and such doesn't sound at all fun, no wonder you didn't enjoy it.

Yikes. That's kind of crazy! o-o

And yeah. A bit too high maintenance for my tastes.

I had to run a shop in Northkeep (actually I think I may have volunteered for it just before the real shop owner character died in roleplay). Luckily for I, I wasn't entirely forced to do things 24/7 or keep the place up as realistically as possible (stock resupplies were presumed to be happening, most of the time I had what people needed [and it was reasonable stuff for a traveler's shop]), and my only real duty was to ensure that my character priced things appropriately and was able to order things from the local carpenter or blacksmith when the need arose.

... I kind of liked that job, actually.

But there's some realism for you. Not a huge amount of responsibility was forced onto me, but on the other hand we weren't a magical shop with enchanted weapons or magical potions (despite being a medieval-fantasy dream).

Y'want that stuff? Er, sorry, but you'd have to find an enchanter or a mage for that sort of stuff.

People...
People seriously...
It's called Roleplaying, not Roleworking.

I love this. @.@ You have no idea how much I love this statement right here, lol!

THANK YOU!


Also, Copper; That job sounds just fine! The place I'm talking about though isn't quite so lenient. You even have to keep track of your character's finances. Yes, it does amazing work for creating RP. But it weighs the shoulders a bit.

oh goodness. Keeping track of finances. I have issues with my OWN as it so stands, how do you expect me to track down 5+ more? I keep a general idea of what happens to my characters' money-- are they frivolous spenders? Are they responsible?

Then figure it out from there. I mean really, who wants to be THAT anal when it comes to fictional money...?

I'm the same as you. I keep a total of how much money Mstis' earns per mission, but that's about it. I estimate the rest.

Whoooo. I can't say I've really had any of those issues. I've seen some really nifty 'money purses' designed into the DS on Furcadia but I can never really see implementing it.. for example in a dream like TGT. It'd be nice to see how some people use it, but totally unnecessary and you don't want to force people to use it.
My reality in fantasy (or roleplay) tends to stick to my character reacting appropriately. My main issue is where people think they can get away with doing certain things ICly, when in all honesty their character would just be booted out of the facility ICly or banished... but then people don't <i>really</i> want their characters forced away forever.
There are rules to keep the continuity in place but I couldn't even imagine having to track the finances my characters has supposedly dealt with.

This is always a fun one.

I want common sense. That's what I want more than anything. I make characters that throw fireballs, wander universes when they fell asleep, or whatever other completely impossible thing. What I want is for someone to apply a sense of reason to RP.

One character of mine gained the ability to puppeteer dragons within a certain extent; high dragons, divine dragons, etc etc weren't so easy, but if they were--say--a corpse of a dragon, and only had weak residual will stapled to their bones, them becoming an undead dragon was likely. I ran into one guy who wanted to win, so so so bad. My character stood in a dragon valley, and was answering what was, frankly, poorly played dragons who had no sense of wisdom becoming of the age of the beasts with physical attacks at vulnerable points. The fella' used his undead abilities to resurrect (older, unrelated) dragon corpses around. Not being there to win, but rather trying to balance it, I infered my character attempted to counter-control, and it was likely that the two struggling forces should relatively neutralize each other for sense of balance. Oh no, he argued. They weren't dragons anymore! They weren't even dragon skeletons anymore! His super duper nifty undead magic made them (some key word I can't remember), even though they were made of dragon bone (this apparently instantly changed upon insta-resurrection), looked like dragons, and so on! What was worse, when I pointed out how ludicrous this was, this yahoo brought in his friends, who were at least semi-respected people in the chat, who all started laughing "It's fantasy!"--yet had no answer to me saying "So, it being fantasy, I can say I look at them and they disintegrate in my awesomeness?" No balance. No honor in some chat systems, anymore.

That's the kind of crap I hate. Logic. Use it. Reality is one thing, common sense is another.

Common sense can apply to a lot of things.

- For every action there should be equal and opposite reaction. Be violent, have cops, or authorities, or vigilantes, or some force of balance come after you. If a character doesn't work, but buys diamonds every day, they should start running low.

- If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, it's at least vaguely related to a duck. I don't care if it's a golden-egg laying, fire-breathing, metal-plated duck, it's still a frickin' duck. This applies to beasties, magics, whatever. A resurrected dragon corpse is still a dragon corpse. Fireballs and pyrokinesis are both unnatural triggers of otherwise natural wavelengths; anyone trying to say "your anti-fire-magic field doesn't work on my fire-based psionics!" is trying to win, not show common sense. Especially if you are working freeform in with characters from conflicted settings. It's one thing if you're in a campaign that acknowledges both seperately but by god be reasonable with your fellow RPers.

- If you are weilding powers that are rightfully outside of existence (I could mention a specific person, but he'd be unknown around here), then your character and/or his ability to use them should rightfully also be outside of that frame of existence. You know. Forms of energy that are actually the building blocks OF energy, or more primordial than energy, and can't be detected by anyone but the people who use the energy, because it's that much more basic than the world. If you're that darn primordial, why do you have to walk through the world in some human or animal form? Why don't you simply aspect through the grass, because you dreamt it up? Because you're being played by a player who has no idea what they're even trying to portray. If it's above your comprehension, you probably shouldn't even try to play it. (Seriously, this guy designed a form of primordial energy that can eat and re-roll any energy into what he wants, and since everything in the universe is made of energy, he could turn your sneeze into a windstorm, or your foot into a platypus, but better, it was a Magi [that bizarre energy] platypus above all rules of the universe, eating all energy in the universe. Oh, and because he dropped the C from Magi, it was not magic and could not be counteracted with any anti-magic measures. It was more primordial than that.) No.

- If you're infinitely old, you'd better have accomplished something. There was a point in a chat I went to the ages went more and more ridiculous, and yet... each character that was a 400,000 year old vampire had nothing to do but lurk in the dark corner of a bar, moping about what they've never had, and what they've lost. Even though they never did anything to earn it. My favorite vampire I saw RPed was like 600 years old and used that time to build a small empire and, changing aliases with time, a modern monopoly off of the finances. He did something with his life. Not saying everyone needs to turn into a mogul, but... what have they done, in all that time? And if it's nothing, why do we care, or why did someone design them that old?

Those are the levels of "realism" I want. I'm not very demanding.

Oh, and one minor one.

-If you are RP fighting competitively, and using melee/physical parameters unaided by magic or impossible feats, then listen to physics. I won't hold people to that in general RP, but I don't want to hear complaining between two people who wanted a fully realistic sword fight while person A can move like a vampire and person B has the power of the Hulk. This is more minor, personal in gripe but honestly. Why is it hard to just... use rationale in those things?

Yeah, there's my list of realism wants.

I applaude(my failure brain won't tell me if that is spelled right) you, Minerva! I absolutely love that entire list. Common sense. It's perfect! Unfortunately, common sense isn't so common anymore. But your list had so many fantastic points that I simply can't address them all! I can simply clap.

I agree! I'll admit sometimes I'll create a flaw in my characters - for example, one of my characters can transform, creating any suit of armor/clothing she can think of in full detail that is fit for her. Because she has to mentally create every aspect of it, they're usually very simple and just cover the basics of what she needs, unless she's trying to mimic something. There's a few rules I've set to that, but that's a bit tedious and a waste of your time. ^-^ Anyway, my friend was able to discover a flaw. She could shift, conjure some sort of cloak, take it off, then create another one somewhat similar. In the instance where her and a friend were trying to survive a cold blizzard with no fuel for a firepit, they would have an infinite supply of "firewood" and cloaks to act as blankets. I had to come up with a weak and thinking-on-my-feet solution... I figured, "Hey, her transformation is pretty dramatic and large. Maybe it could wear her out." So, basically, she nearly collapses after three or four consecutive transformations without much of a break in between.

Good going, Zeke. You nearly killed your partner and your way out of the blizzard. (That roleplay was so much fun, let me tell you.)

Ehh... I tried. I don't mean to have loopholes like this, and I'm glad my friends are willing to point it out!

I got to admit that I'm the only person I've seen do this (maybe I need to get out more), but I have a character that has an allergy to healing magic-- and it's deadly. Breaking out into hives, going into shock, possible death, all that unfun stuff. How's that for some crazy realism for you? His body actually thinks the energies that specify healing magics from other magics are bad stuff and tries to fight back against it.

This also means he can't heal himself, even though he's a paladin. His deity literally would have to step in and divine-heal for him, otherwise he just heals normally like every other human. For some reason though this doesn't apply to when he's revving up a spell for someone else, but that's a kink I'm trying to work out. Might have a slightly lesser reaction since it isn't directly coming into contact with him (armor & clothing?), but hey, this is a start at some sort of realism, yeah?

*raises a hand* I've got a few characters "allergic" to healing, or more they are polar-opposed to it. Cast degeneration on them and they would regenerate. A form of negativity-feeding demon, wherein healing is based on pleasantness and divinity and general compassion. People wondered why my blind priest ran away at the idea of healing, or why he ended up rolling around on the ground shrieking when someone tried to cleanse the poison from him. Oops.

Most of my characters come with multiple flaws. The more powerful they seem at a glance, the more gaping their weakness is. One of my most unfair seeming characters is actually because he's an illusionist. The character is, in fact, the staff he carries at all times, not the man who carries it. So you can destroy the human body 100 times and get nowhere unless you destroy the staff that keeps generating the body. You have no idea how many people I've p**sed off with that, but it's really so simple--especially since he uses the staff as a weapon, and is constantly socking you in the face with the blunt end like a fist! It's always right there, waiting to be thoroughly dismantled, but people would rather deflect/counter the weapon and try to kick him in the nuts or something. Then he doesn't blink, and everyone gets confused! But he can be destablized due to the duality of the staff. It's allergic to any kind of healing, cleansing, or holy magic; a strong physical blow can break the staff as long as you don't do it at its natural break/release point (it can turn into batons), in which case it's minor damage rather than destruction; certain parameters could render the staff inert if a powerful enough field could take effect and just leave it laying there going 'well this sucks...' and so on. Until then? BWAHAHA I AM THE DRAGON MASTER! I RESURRECT CORPSES! YOU CAN NOT KILL ME! ...*tips over* "... Aw..."