When are questions that attempt to add 'real-life' to a game okay and on-topic?

Question

Recently we've had two questions that have attempted to reach beyond to scope of the game they were questioning.

The first one, found here, was closed as off-topic for treating D&D 3.5e like a physics engine.

The second one, found here, was not.

I know they vary slightly, but they were both asking for situations that were not covered by the rules because they were attempting to 'over-emulate' real life within the game. The answers were essentially the same and boiled down to "The game doesn't do this for you, so you will have to figure it out on your own."

With very similar answers why was one closed as off-topic and the other not?

If the only reason (as hinted by the replies to my comments on the second link) was a tag then I vote the first question have the rules-lawyering tag removed and then be re-opened.

Essentially the real issue here is When are questions that attempt to add 'real-life' elements into a game okay?

P.S.: I didn't flag the second question because I felt an opportunity for a re-worked question was better than a simple shut-down.

Answer 1

There is big difference in the two questions.

The first is a purely theoretical "apply RPG mechanics to real world stuff" and the second is "What are the implications of X in my game?"

That's basically the big difference. The first isn't related to something that could potentially come up in gameplay and the second is.

Both generally run afoul of this quote in the help center:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.

But, the second is far closer to the realm of the possibility than the first.

Answer 2

One question seems to be expecting or even demanding that their real-life intuitions are modelled by the game, while the other seems to be very much asking what the game already does. The difference is subtle, but directly impacts how the questions are framed and reflect the problem each is trying to solve. The difference is:

• How does the game handle X?

  This is much simpler to answer. Sometimes "it doesn't" will be the answer, sometimes "That's up to you", sometimes "It doesn't, but here's how you could", or sometimes even "there's a rule for that! Here it is."

  Because the asker isn't presuming a bunch of false or problematic things, just asking how it does work and only softly mentioning their real-world intuitions as the prompt for asking, they're not pushing their assumptions to the forefront and demanding they be accommodated.

• How does the game handle X, given YZW and Q?

  Here, if Y, Z, W, and Q aren't even true about the game, the asker seems to be expecting that false things be accommodated by the answers. Possibly the question is ill-formed. Possibly, it's just something that the community doesn't want to deal with. You can try to answer it by challenging the frame of the question, but it's likely going to result in debate with the asker while they attempt to tell you that no, YZWQ are true, of course they're true.

The difference then is that people will shut down questions that seem to be impossible to answer given the insistence of contradictory requirements. A very similar question might attract no such negative voting attention though, simply by appearing to permit correction.

For example, the latter sort of question will sometimes be fine, even with false assumptions, if it seems amenable to correction in answers. It entirely depends on how it's asked, and how aggressively the false assumptions are presented. If they're merely misapprehensions that seem readily corrected, then the question is unlikely to give people a "eugh, I don't want to even deal with it" reaction and won't attract close votes. For example, in the form "How does the game handle X? I believe YZW and Q, and so it all doesn't make sense," the question is almost inviting correction. It may still be difficult to convince the asker, but answers that clear up the confusion by pointing to the misunderstanding will often be accepted.

Answer 3

The two questions are fundamentally different. The second (open) one is after a bunch of preamble, asking this:

In other words - can Minor Creation be used for constant food supplying, or it is basically a bad idea?

Given that there already is a spell that can do constant food supplying (Create Food), this can be answered by comparing the mechanics of the two spells and what, if anything, the game says about food. The rules in this case don't have any clear answers, but the question is about a specific effect of a specific spell in a specific situation, compared to some other spell that does the same thing.

Maybe an edit for clarity would be helpful, but that's an answerable question.

The first (closed) question reads like something from a physics exam. There are no rules based answers at all, and any answer other than "make something up and call it a house rule" is going to be relying on physics knowledge way out of scope of RPG.SE.

If you look at the answers, that's pretty much what happened.

Answer 4

I think that the first question would be better suited on the WB.SE rather than the RPG.SE. It's question format, asking how something would work lacking any particular mention of a specific system on a generally accepted trope to fantasy games, seems like it would belong there.I am am aware it is tagged as D&D 3.5e but there is no mention of it or it's wording on the subject in the question, neither is there a game play example.
It's because that it fits so well into another sites domain I understand why it would be closed and agree with the dicsion.

As for the second question, that is asking how a particular spell works, and what affects it will have on the (N)PC. Though this could be quite a subjective answer, and might be better suited to a discussion in chat or on another forum it still fits within what I consider this sites accepted questions.

When are real life questions acceptable?

I would say when they have a direct bearing on the game and the enjoyment of it by the the players. Some DM's want to bring a splash of reality into their games, weather it is carrying capacities, starvation rules or some other such scenario.

Answer 5

I've repeatedly meet "the game is not a physic simulation" answer. And most commentators suppose that there are no ways for in-game mechanic to place a character into specified ambiguity.

But I may prove that some of cases seeming to be impossible are actually feasible.

First of all physics works in any fantasy world, it is objective phenomena. Different worlds may have different physics laws, possibly totally undiscovered by it inhabitants. But this laws exist however not formulated. You may use well-known natural science way of hypotheses testing to bring light upon this laws.

There are two approaches for inserting magic into a fantasy world. You may totally override all casual physical laws or you may enrich them with magic in so in most times normal laws are applicable and only in specific cases magic cheats the normal laws.

The first way be used in fiction where all characters obey the writer and exposes supernatural laws to the chosen degree that the writer can control. But considering open nature of the rpg worlds, the world author can not control character actions, so he generally prefers the second way.

Suppose a character happen to be into a magic world. Then he performs sequence of experiments that are described into the school science course. If they give him the same result (in a situation where magic interference reduced to zero) than all well-known physics laws are still on service. Even if electromagnetic field is replaced with electromagnetic elemental.

Suppose that the fantasy universe follows the first methods of building "everything is magic". Then some of experiments should go out of conventional way. It means that every one consequence of this behavior should be considered by the realm author. Say kinetic theory of gases ceases to work. The author should replace diffusion, temperature-density relationship and other properties of gases with custom ones. You may effectively ban ICE with the cost of redefining all the atmosphere processes in your fictional world. And every player would pay attention to different aspects of magical universe laws, so the author would had hard times describing non-contradictory world

Taking "magic is only cheat to normal laws" is much easier to describe. And all d&d realms follows that way. They describes earth-like planets with a sun and closely adjacent axial tilt. Only minor aspects are modified with magic. So all mundane engineering devices would work in this universe too.

The meta-gaming objection "your character may not know what is known to you" may be fired. But note a typical d&d wizard. It has 30 inherited intelligence attribute by 20th level. Basic 18 + 2 as racial bonus to grey elf + 5 as level-dependent bonuses + 5 from wishes. Einstein has at most 25 Int attribute in the d&d scale. If player has a free time he can pursue physic laws by series of experiments each step based on previous and small enough to take appropriate Int test. His magic gives the wizard large advantage in setting such experiments. He may produce large variety of needed devices with magic. Shadow conjuration, wish, polymorph any object, other spells (and note that d&d permits to develop custom spells).