Back in the old days of playing D&D 3.5 I was running a campaign with 8 players (yes, 8…). Amongst the usual set of crazy logistic issues that had to be faced (pallets of snacks for example…) we also had 8 different playing styles with 8 different motivations, backgrounds, educations, etc. I love my gaming group – and running a game for 8 people is a tough challenge I wouldn’t recommend just anyone trying out… A couple of members of the group are of the engineering background and this led to its own challenges as a GM (analysing buildings and traps for structural integrity for example). This would lead to amusing situations such as the players spending 30 minutes of game time trying to explain how a door couldn’t be opened by lifting the beam instead of just pulling it to the side with the attached ropes and getting on with the game.

I was reflecting on this campaign the other day and I remembered a scene that had bugged me at the time, but had largely forgotten about subsequently. The party had taken a completely unanticipated route to find something out (as usual) and I was in improvise mode creating a basement complex underneath a big cathedral. As the party got further and further underground they started to notice thick mould with long groping fronds appearing everywhere. Before too long, the only passage was tunnels cut through the fungus by some undetermined hand. The undetermined hand turned out to be a big purple monster with big teeth and antenna that fired electrical pulses at its enemies, which, at this particular juncture, were the party. In an effort to add some flavour to the game I made a flip comment that got debated at length inbetween rolling for hits, and here it is:

“As the sparks build up between the creatures antenna, you notice the fronds shake with what appears to be excitement. The energy pulse shoots at you (hitting you for, I can’t remember, lets say, 18 damage). Where the energy pulse passed the fungus, you get the impression that the fungus has been well fed.”

Getting pressed for more information, and really just wanting to get on with the game (managing 8 players in combat), I explained it all away as, the creature eats the fungus, and the fungus is fed by the energy beam coming out of the creature. Hmm, yes, we all know what the crazy haired physicists would say about that being a closed ecosystem – but we also know what they would say about 3 members of the party using magic to defeat the creature (I like to think it might be “Holy shit! That’s cool – I knew Plato was on to something with all those bloody solids!”). After getting pressed about breaking the laws of physics (and being briefly called bloody stupid) I used the one statement that a GM should NEVER use as it is a complete admittance of utter failure “Well, it’s magic, OK?”

Or is it actually an admittance of failure in a fantasy role-playing game?

There are really two considerations that need to be balanced here. The first is, the game has to be believable to some degree. You are asking your players to suspend their disbelief. The best games are immersive, believable, and realistic to a point. Usually the realism focuses more on the characters you create within the game and their reactions to the players. But sometimes it is important to have a scene that is accurate or a trap, or a building. At the end of the day if you have a group of engineers who will happily use flying horses to ascend to the top of floating mountains and there use the jade monkey to summon a poison gas dragon wraith to unlock the keys to the realms of the gods, but not allow you to break any laws of relativity, then, that’s a series of balls you will have to juggle as a GM – after all, you are attempting to create a happy role-playing experience for them.

The other consideration is that it is a fantasy, and as such, the laws of physics can, when necessary, take a back seat and certainly shouldn’t get in the way of a good story. If you have magic wielding wizards striking down creatures in a floating castle that clearly could never exist without the use of magic then, at some point, you’re going to have to accept that perhaps Einstein hadn’t gotten to this plane yet to tell it what it can and can’t do. If players are worrying about whether or not something could happen in real life they might be forgetting the point of being involved in a fantasy role-playing game – the suspension of reality and the acceptance of fantasy.

There are, of course, many games out there that seek to create a very realistic set of rules governing how player actions are to be measured, and indeed, nearly all role-playing games take some care to get it at least close to be being right. Falling damage, the damage of weapons, travel times, prices for good and services and historical context all need to be balanced and believable as it reduces the amount of the things that need to be dismissed. There is a place for realism, that is true. A realistically designed trap is more readily accepted than one that clearly has not been thought through and a dungeon that has had the food supply and motivation of the occupants well mapped out is certainly more believable to play in.

By and large, this is probably not a problem that is frequently faced in most gaming groups (at least I hope it isn’t) but maybe it is. In hindsight I should have said that the fungus lived off nutrients in the wall, and the creature ate any monks that came down as well. I didn’t have to create a closed ecosystem and having said this, sometimes it is easier all round if an over worked GM’s mistakes are ignored and not pointed out. I don’t think anyone really remembers the incident, and the campaign ran generally smoothly by and large for a few years – so I guess it mightn’t have been that important in our group either. In the end it probably comes down to an understanding by players and GM’s as to how the campaign world should work.