Realism in Fantasy

[Ghostman]

Alright, so I got this book at Dreamhaven in south Minneapolis today called "Pickled, Potted, & Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the World." I love D&D and I love food and cooking, and I really like a good solid realism to form the foundation for a world which I then add the idea of magic to. Food, cooking, and things like that are an ideal means to do this since it is such an important part of any society. I HATE the whole "iron rations" thing--it drives me up a wall, I want to know what's in them, how is it preserved, etc. Do the rations contain a good hard cheese, that would keep for a while? Bread goes stale quickly with no preservatives. A liquor-soaked heavy fruitcake will travel well, as would pickles or salted/dried beef. What's IN the stuff? ... This is why anyone who plays in my PNP games thinks I'm a bit weird.

Anyhoo, am I the only one this anal about a realistic base? Or does everyone just go with the whole elven waybread thing and not worry about it?

[Product of Void]

yup, I like little realism with my boat load of fantasy.

trying to rationalize fireballs from gestures and words, dragons, gollems, and all the other stuff = madness.

Iron rations were to me salted meat (ergo iron).

[Rhifox]

I usually go with the salted/dried beef rations myself, with some cheese as well. That seems to be the most generic kind of ration.

[TheBrogueadier]

I'm one of those awkward buggers who likes a boat full of realise in his fantasy..

+1/2 weapons can be explained away with different mixes materials or forging techniques and the quality of weapon smithing.

The properties of most enchanted arrows, for the most part, would be reasonably explained by different arrowheads - Bodkin, fluted, broad, tanged, roving etc..

Armour bonuses by armour smithing quality (this could also explain away weight mods - Ripples or fluting can be used to decrease the weight for the same amount of protection etc..

Iron rations would probably be simple survival fare: pickled fish, dried meats, dried fruit, hard cheese, nuts, baked biscuits and maybe something along the lines of kendal mint cake.

Course... Anyone trying to explain away stuff like fireballs or other arcane/divine spells are on a hiding to nothing.

[Iso]

I know a lot of people are into that stuff and often implement it into their RPG video games as mods, while others put them into their D&D PnP games. I know my brother used to do it, but he was trying to do various things to punish us above and beyond reasonable into the realms of just trying to be cruel. :P

I'm one of those players who doesn't let my character leave home without matches, a mirror, climbing equipment, you name it - even if I'm not expecting it. Why risk it? If you've got the strength points, use them!

[Ghostman]

Well, I take the realistic base and then drop magic over it---basically, I create a set of rules for magic that are essentially another set of natural laws, like physics, that are influenced by and influence physics (and others) but are independent of them at the same time. But I tend to like low-magic settings, so most people operate in a medieval technological paradigm. Then magic falls in, and it behaves according to its own rules. But MOST people still need to find ways to plow their fields and put the harvest away according to natural law.

And food preservation I find fascinating for some reason; Zim's previous incarnation on another server was heavily into pickling. After a lengthy career as a mage and politician he retired to a farm and earned a living selling pickles of various sorts to the local markets.

[Ghostman]

Oh, and I don't do it to be cruel...I want to create a rich and vibrant world that seems more real.

[Xeesheava]

About Food: I always treated the food an irrelevant part of the adventure itself, so the adventurers never needed to carry lots of food because the main road from a village/city to another village/city have an Inn every 50 Km.

Wealth: The monetary unit in the campaign was fair and lightweight in order to not encumber the packages. The party got a common bank account in the Royal Bank. This bank gaves them vouchers with the signature of the bank in order to keep the gold safe. To avoid falsifications the Royal Bank have a "Specialist who imbues a watermark on the vouchers.

Every commerce and Inn who accepts the Royal Bank Vouchers have the knowledge to see the watermark using Official Glasses provided by the Royal Bank.

Traveling and Inns: Obviously, if they don't carry any food. They must stop often in the inns for having lunch and dinner. The meal costs 10 gold pieces and the room costs 20 gold pieces. So, the characters must spend 40 gold pieces/day (Two "Ten Gold Vouchers" and one "Twenty Gold Voucher" to keep them refreshed and healthy.

Note to Ghostman: Some Inns have refrigerating systems to maintain the food fresh, but it's an expensive device because it's magical enhanced with persistence spells. So, this wonders of technological-magic are only available in a degree of 1 every 15 inns.

Magic: In my setting the magic it's not unlimited, every time the magic is used, the threads of the ether receives a scar, this scar have a healing period of 1 week. A careless usage of magic can destroy the magic in a radius of 500 m, and this scar will heal in 1 year.
So, the populations of Apprentice Magicians are 1 of 100.000.
And the population of Full Magicians are 1 of 100.000.000.

Having this clear, the magic weapons and armors are more mechanical than magical. For example, a Longsword +1 with fire damage it's represented as a longsword with a hilt like a glove with the thumb leading to a button to make an internal rune react to the touch and set on fire internal patches of inflammable material, as a stove. Releasing the pressure of the button allows the air and wind enter to the blade and turn off the fire.

This complex mechanism requires the character to spend some skill points in Use Magical Device (Modified to be a Class Skill to all) and Knowledge: Evallyte Craftmanship (Setting Skill) in order to give the weapon a proper usage and prevent backfiring.

Note to TheBrogueadier: Mass production of this weapons and armors are out of discussion due the necessary training to use them. There is some registers of a commoner taking a magical weapon from a wizard and died due a backfiring of an electric orb.

Fantasy Creatures: There is a minimal ammount of fantastic creatures on the setting, this also includes Elves, Dwarfs and, Gnomes. Most of them are praised as Gods-on-Earth. While anothers are feared.
The first ones lives in small cities as mayors or cultist.
The others lurks in the shadows trying to settle in some place.

-- That's all I got at the moment, Im a little sleepy, so, I can't continue, but this gives you my idea of Realism on Fantasy.

[Urithrand]

Try to find the delicate balance betwen realism and fantasy here. Trying to rationalise too much about a game spoils some of the fun imo, and putting too much thought into these things isn't going to enhance your gameplay performance. More to the point, when you obsess too much about the trivial aspects of the gameplay world can really spoil it when you run into something that just can't be rationalised without stretching the truth to tearing point.

[Azulfae]

Indeed, magic just isn't magical if you turn it into science and try to understand it.

I see where you are coming from though. We are talking a setting that is a little lower magic than the Forgotten realms here and a little more medievil meets industrial. Sounds quite dark to be honest.

I do like the idea of non magical weapons that have magical properties because the creators chose to use science to make them instead of drawing upon the weave.

Sounds a bit like stuff you'd get on Lantan.

Sounds like you should be playing a Gnomish inventor Ghostman.
First thing to invent on this server would be a good tough cod piece with AC bonus Vs racial groups Orcs & half-Orcs

[Ghostman]

Ooooh, don't get me started on gold. FR people must be swimming in the stuff. 2 gold pieces for a backpack?!?

So I went through all my equipment lists and changed prices for everything, and set the main standard as silver. Most simple exchanges take place in copper or silver now, and gold is something rare that most country folk never see (as it should be).

I started with something that gradually grew very complex until I realized I'd ended up with something like that crazy British currency system with farthings and shillings and ha'pennies and thruppence and stuff like that....so I pruned it all back into a simple metric system.

1 gold crown
10 gold marks
100 silver marks
1,000 silver pennies
10,000 copper tenpennies
100,000 copper pennies

With the silver mark being the standard coin, and most people only seeing copper and the occasional silver penny.

[Duerric]

Note to Ghostman: Some Inns have refrigerating systems to maintain the food fresh, but it's an expensive device because it's magical enhanced with persistence spells. So, this wonders of technological-magic are only available in a degree of 1 every 15 inns.

Hi,

in the past (from ancient times almost to the presence) people used Ice and good Cellar to keep the grocery fresh, with no need of fridges. In the winter the landlords brought the Ice Cubes from outside in the cellar and in the good cellar the Ice could dwell from winter to winter, so no magic was needed . I think, that people in Faerun are clever enough to use the same cheap method instead of some expensive "magic" .

Duerric, member of association for the elvish rights.

[Xeesheava]

Hi,

in the past (from ancient times almost to the presence) people used Ice and good Cellar to keep the grocery fresh, with no need of fridges. In the winter the landlords brought the Ice Cubes from outside in the cellar and in the good cellar the Ice could dwell from winter to winter, so no magic was needed . I think, that people in Faerun are clever enough to use the same cheap method instead of some expensive "magic" .

Duerric, member of association for the elvish rights.

Kudos to you, I will change the rules about refrigeration in my setting. Thanks

[Jai_V]

While I like a healthy dose of a realism, I believe some of those stuff to be useless fric-a-frac that, while an interesting side-bar, isn't conducive to a fun RP experience (unless you want to RP Julia Childs and Marian Jansen's Ye Olde Better Foods and Wines).

I consider most trail rations to be either preserved by standard methods (salted, pickled, or jerked) or by "mystical" means.

See, I'm funny about my settings. I'm in to "low magic" when it applies to spell levels 1 and up, but Cantrips and Orisions (Level 0 spells)? Seems to me that any penny-ante idiot with a half a brain could pull them off. Generally, in my campaigns (be they FR, Eberron, DL, or custom) you'll find several people in even the tiniest villages that can use spells like Prestidigitation to circumvent day-to-day chores. I'm especially fond of giving it to all the serving wenches at Inns/Taverns, so they can chill drinks for customers or warm food that's been sitting too long on a particularly busy night.

Furthermore, I don't put a per day limit on non-damage dealing/healing level 0 spells for my players. I've been lucky enough to have good players most who were mature enough (and the rest, simply not creative enough) to take advantage of this.

As for money, I usually lower the price of common sundries in order to prevent my players from necessitating 1000000000000 gold coins.

That's just me, though.

[Iso]

Well, also things like potatoes, apples, carrots, etc, can be cooked easily or even eaten raw. If you consider people have to eat every day it's not so odd an idea.