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Old 07-11-2018, 01:21 AM   #1
pestigor
 
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: New Orleans, LA
Default What do we mean by "Realistic"?

The Thread on "Balance" got me thinking about another aspect of role playing games in general and Gurps specifically. What does it mean to have a "Realistic" campaign? Gurps allows some pretty detailed options to have communicable diseases in your fantasy world, or crazy logistical issues with a science fiction setting using Gurps Space Ships if you want them. I've seen a lot of people asking if "such and such" is realistic or is this character concept realistic and from my perspective the question these people should be asking is "In this game I'm putting together where do I want "realistic" to be?

I personally like Gurps High Tech and tactical shooting because I run a Twilight 2000 game for a bunch of gun enthusiasts with hundreds of rifles each.

They want that detail, and to be honest, while it is "pretty good for a game" there are some decidedly unrealistic things we've encountered during play.
Fortunately we're all over 40 and we aren't trying to "one up" one another, but after a session we'll talk about the game and what seemed "off". We like the level of detail as where we have so we just laugh at some of the silly things we find happen in our game that are very unrealistic.

I think an obsession with this as opposed to running a fun game can make Gurps (or any game for that matter) very unfun and more of a chore.

What is your personal level of reality when you run a Gurps game?
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