Uhm, OP are you even remotely serious? You are complaining about the lack of realism in a FANTASY GAME with dragons, magic and giant minitiature space hamsters. But i guess you also stop every day to let your party sleep, make sure they eat and drink and complain that people can still fight even after being hit by arrows?
Uhm, OP are you even remotely serious? You are complaining about the lack of realism in a FANTASY GAME with dragons, magic and giant minitiature space hamsters. But i guess you also stop every day to let your party sleep, make sure they eat and drink and complain that people can still fight even after being hit by arrows?
Congratulations on entirely missing the point.
It's a role-playing choice... A way to freshen up a game most of us have completed multiple times. Creating a new way to immerse in the content so it doesn't just become an endless sequence of point-and-click point scoring. It provides a new challenge in the same way as solo-no-reload runs. In order to effectively rp, you have to be in the role... And doing that means justifying the choices the character makes on terms other than "OMFG - CromFandBelmFTW!"
@egon Realism has a place in fantasy. A fantasy world isn't one with no rules. It has - or ought to have - an internal logic. His point is that hammerspace, as it's used in the game, is not consistent with the logic of the game.
More generally - good fantasy has a few differences (e.g. particular kind of magic, monsters, etc.) and what makes it compelling is that the rest of the story is logical an consistent - it's a 'what-if' scenario not a - whatever we feel like at this moment scenario.
Uhm, OP are you even remotely serious? You are complaining about the lack of realism in a FANTASY GAME with dragons, magic and giant minitiature space hamsters. But i guess you also stop every day to let your party sleep, make sure they eat and drink and complain that people can still fight even after being hit by arrows?
I think you misunderstand him. For one, every fantasy setting I know of has built in rules. Just because Jedi can use the force for telekinetic purposes does not mean they can hold their breath in space, fly through the sun at will or shoot laser-beams out of their eyes. Just because "dragons, magic and miniature giant space hamsters" exist in that world has nothing to do with a 9-strength character being able to pull a 85 pound set of plate mail from a bag of holding (finding it within seconds among hundreds of items) and then toss it to a buff warrior. There is a big difference between a story being unrealistic when compared to the real world and being incongruent with the fantasy setting in which it takes place. Calling for consistency *within* the game-world is different than calling for consistancy between the game-world and real life.
Second: He is not really "complaining" in the sense that he's upset. He's not asking for the game to change. If you like bags of holding and the various other stuff that makes the game less of a hassle but slightly less "realistic" (I know I do) then nothing he says here will change that. Its a personal preference that he wants to discuss. Many people play the game differently. I don't mind several of these things usually, since I find the practical benefits and "hassle-reduction" a fair trade for a little bit of immersion-breaking corniness. But others have different opinions, and may be interested in discussing them. I know I enjoyed reading this thread despite not looking to emulate the practices of many other posters when it comes to these things.
It is also hilarious that the game doesn't let you put a bag of holding inside another bag of holding.
Perhaps this would destroy the universe?
According to Wikipedia, it varies between editions of the game. In early editions this opens up an "astral gate" that basically sucks in everything in a 10' radius and throws it into the Astral Plane, which essentially means it's lost forever. Not quite the entire universe, but you'd definitely ruin someone's day. In later editions the rules apparently allow for you to do this without creating a wormhole, and you can freely store infinite junk (with infinite bags). No idea what the source for these rules are, though (or when "earlier editions" becomes "later editions" for that matter).
A lot of the bag of holding stuff isn't really defined in the rules, though. It's a pretty nonsensical thing. A lot of the descriptions for it refer to "non-dimensional space" which is already an oxymoron by any practical definition (if you have zero dimensions you're a point, not a space).
So if I were to, say, rig a trap to stuff a bag of holding inside another I could blast someone into the astral plane... hypothetically... on an unrelated note, I need the names of all merchants who sell tiny bags of holding in bulk.
So if I were to, say, rig a trap to stuff a bag of holding inside another I could blast someone into the astral plane... hypothetically... on an unrelated note, I need the names of all merchants who sell tiny bags of holding in bulk.
At the cost of two bags of holding! You'd better really hate that guy!
You don't even need a second bag- piercing the fabric of one will send whatever is inside to the astral plane as well. Plus Sarevok has spiky armor, which I always thought was impractical as hell.
There is a big difference between a story being unrealistic when compared to the real world and being incongruent with the fantasy setting in which it takes place. Calling for consistency *within* the game-world is different than calling for consistancy between the game-world and real life.
Second: He is not really "complaining" in the sense that he's upset. He's not asking for the game to change. If you like bags of holding and the various other stuff that makes the game less of a hassle but slightly less "realistic" (I know I do) then nothing he says here will change that. Its a personal preference that he wants to discuss. Many people play the game differently. I don't mind several of these things usually, since I find the practical benefits and "hassle-reduction" a fair trade for a little bit of immersion-breaking corniness. But others have different opinions, and may be interested in discussing them. I know I enjoyed reading this thread despite not looking to emulate the practices of many other posters when it comes to these things.
Don't you know anything, any standard storage device comes with a hammerspace spell on it. Might not be as efficient or good as bag of holding but all items have it, Backpacks, sacks, barrels, crates, you name it, it comes with a free hammerspace enchantment.
I think you misunderstand him. For one, every fantasy setting I know of has built in rules. Just because Jedi can use the force for telekinetic purposes does not mean they can hold their breath in space, fly through the sun at will or shoot laser-beams out of their eyes. Just because "dragons, magic and miniature giant space hamsters" exist in that world has nothing to do with a 9-strength character being able to pull a 85 pound set of plate mail from a bag of holding (finding it within seconds among hundreds of items) and then toss it to a buff warrior. There is a big difference between a story being unrealistic when compared to the real world and being incongruent with the fantasy setting in which it takes place. Calling for consistency *within* the game-world is different than calling for consistancy between the game-world and real life.
Second: He is not really "complaining" in the sense that he's upset. He's not asking for the game to change. If you like bags of holding and the various other stuff that makes the game less of a hassle but slightly less "realistic" (I know I do) then nothing he says here will change that. Its a personal preference that he wants to discuss. Many people play the game differently. I don't mind several of these things usually, since I find the practical benefits and "hassle-reduction" a fair trade for a little bit of immersion-breaking corniness. But others have different opinions, and may be interested in discussing them. I know I enjoyed reading this thread despite not looking to emulate the practices of many other posters when it comes to these things.
Nope, didn't missunderstand him, he's still complaining (or whining, if one should go by your nitpicking of words).
What both you and OP seems to fail to understand is that this is a game and not a perfect simulation of a "real" universe. In every game there are limits to what you can and can't do (due to the game's engine et cetera). In this game the developers have decided to do away with a certain amount of "realism" to make the game fun (or even at all playable). What the OP is basically doing is complaining that a game from the last millenium isn't following the rules of the real world, similar to complaining that you get free money or that you get sent to jail without a trial when playing monopoly. It's the rules of the *game* not the rules of the world the game is trying to represent. In doing so the OP completely missunderstands the very concept of this game.
As a side note, there is nothing that would prevent a bag of holding to have some sort of built-in spell that lets the bag "know" which item you are looking for and "giving" it to you. And you can't change armour doing battle, that is already in the game. And no real plate mail would weigh 85 pounds.
And as I already said, if one wishes to complain about the built-in mechanics of this game, there are things that are much worse than a quick and easy inventory screen.
Yes @egon.. None of us had realised that BG is a game... Thanks for the edification.
Are you aware of cognitive dissonance? The innately human trait that allows us to hold two conflicting opinions/ideas simultaneously? It *is* possible to enjoy a game and also wish certain elements were different/better. It is also possible to conceive different ways to play that game to compensate for those elements. At no point does OP or @booinyoureyes suggest that the devs should even consider altering the mechanics of the game. OP just wanted to discuss a non-conforming approach amongst fellow geeks (not an insult btw - Geeks Rule).
(Actually: as long as we're discussing PnP: there was an item something-something's Handy Haversack - it was basically a bag of holding backpack that magically gave you whatever you wanted out of it.
Heward's Handy Haversack is the item you were thinking of. There was also a Pouch of Accessibility which provided much the same functionality.
Yes @egon.. None of us had realised that BG is a game... Thanks for the edification.
Are you aware of cognitive dissonance? The innately human trait that allows us to hold two conflicting opinions/ideas simultaneously? It *is* possible to enjoy a game and also wish certain elements were different/better. It is also possible to conceive different ways to play that game to compensate for those elements. At no point does OP or @booinyoureyes suggest that the devs should even consider altering the mechanics of the game. OP just wanted to discuss a non-conforming approach amongst fellow geeks (not an insult btw - Geeks Rule).
No need to get snarky just because you can't think of anything better to say. What OP is talking about has nothing to do with cognitive dissonance. He's complaining/whining about the fact that the game *is* a game (with all the restrictions and limitations of that medium).
Hi, friends, I'm still enjoying my realism roleplaying challenge. When I first shared my thinking about it here, I already had an idea where I wanted to go with it, but I thought I would take a chance on putting it out here to see if friends here could give me more ideas about how to implement it.
Several of you did just that, and I thank you.
If anyone who shares my interest in real historical development of weaponry, armor, and military strategy knows any links to videos and photographs I could check out that might give me more ideas about how to imagine what it would be like to fight in a world of roughly the same technological and cultural development as in the Forgotten Realms, I'd love to take a look at it.
Hey Belgarathmth! I got a small and kinda silly idea (you may actually hate it!) Usually armor (particularly bulky or heavy armor) would have to be fitted for the individual. For example, Minsc and Mazzy would not be able to wear the same set of plate mail whenever they wish. If you want realism, you could, whenever you find a new set of magical armor, got back to town and buy a new non-magical set of the same type. This could be you "pretending" that Mazzy visited the tailor and got the awesome Full Plate you found in Dungeon X sized just for her. In the middle ages they would often take pieces from other sets of armor to fit a new knight, particularly when armor was inherited (which was rarer than you think, since they took quite the beating). You could count the new armor you bought as the price for tailoring and the spare pieces that were necessary.
@booinyoureyes Your game is bugged if you're changing armor in combat
@belgarathmth Sounds like an interesting challenge. I wouldn't want it to be an obligatory part of the game, though. @booinyoureyes has a nice idea there and I've actually thought about the same thing myself when playing these type of games. Getting your very own full plate should be a great achievement, they aren't bought at supermarkets.
Some excellent ideas to spark the role-playing/mental portion of the game. I'd offer a follow-on to the ideas regarding having armor tailored/fitted for your character: allow the armorsmith time to complete the work. Say you are working your way through Dungeon X and you find that really cool set of armor. You drop it into your hammerspace/Bag of Holding until you head back to town/city. You then buy a set of armor of the same type you have just found to simulate the cost of getting your new armor tailored/fitted for you, then you wait X amount of days before actually equipping the armor. I'd guess a good armorsmith would need multiple days to complete the work, perhaps as long as a week, so you set a personal timer to remind yourself NOT to equip the new armor until that week has passed in 'game time'.
I'm thinking more and more these days about how dangerous it would be to carry around vials full of Oil of Fiery Burning in your pack so close to your Scroll Case and other flammable materials.
Also Potions of Explosion might be a bit scary, considering the hits you take and the amount of fire damage that is thrown you way.
I'm still okay with magic-users in a party using magic to circumvent a lot of these problems, but I am currently playing a cleric/paladin in NWN, with no party other than one henchman, so I got interested in this again.
The thing with the "it's magic" solution that still concerns me, is that, if your wizard or witch is going to magically summon large weapons into the hands of your fighters at the right moment, or magically twitch his or her nose and change your fighter's halberd into a bow, then that should take a round of action, precluding the witch or wizard from casting a spell that round.
My research so far is indicating that in the real world, nobody carried weapons of war, as opposed to weapons of self-defense, unless they were actually in an infantry unit in a war. That includes weapons like polearms, greatswords, greataxes, and huge spiked flails, and all shields.
"Self-defense" weapons include sheathable smaller blades like daggers, rapiers, and shortswords, up to longswords at maximum.
Historically, small bands of "adventurers" who carried enough equipment to be prepared for anything, did not exist.
Just as a challenge to myself, though, and to increase my immersion in my games, I remain interested in keeping things as realistic as possible, including logical use of "magic", as seen on television like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the like. Notice that on these TV shows, especially the more recent "serious" ones like Charmed, Buffy, and Angel, as well as Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and Originals, and Game of Thrones, we do not see characters doing unbelievable things (according to a world where supernatural power exists), or breaking the laws of physics.
Even "magic" in all these shows follows a believable logic that doesn't require you to leave your brain at the door in order to become immersed.
I guess what I will do is to follow my own muse on this sort of thing, and to just self-restrict what I allow in my own gaming.
And, independently of rpg gaming, I remain fascinated by this subject, inspired by Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and D&D in general.
There have been several threads in the off-topic forums where various forumites have demonstrated quite a bit of knowledge about medieval warfare East and West, such as @Heindrich1988 and @LadyRhian.
My thanks to everyone who has shared knowledge and insight with me here.
The thing with the "it's magic" solution that still concerns me, is that, if your wizard or witch is going to magically summon large weapons into the hands of your fighters at the right moment, or magically twitch his or her nose and change your fighter's halberd into a bow, then that should take a round of action, precluding the witch or wizard from casting a spell that round.
I love this idea and will be implementing it in all of my playthroughs from here on out. Thanks for the inspiration!
Have you thought at all about holster ing weapons while in towns? This is something that always bothers me in games, shouldn't you get arrested for carrying weapons at the ready through Beregost?
Comments
But i guess you also stop every day to let your party sleep, make sure they eat and drink and complain that people can still fight even after being hit by arrows?
It's a role-playing choice... A way to freshen up a game most of us have completed multiple times. Creating a new way to immerse in the content so it doesn't just become an endless sequence of point-and-click point scoring. It provides a new challenge in the same way as solo-no-reload runs. In order to effectively rp, you have to be in the role... And doing that means justifying the choices the character makes on terms other than "OMFG - CromFandBelmFTW!"
Realism has a place in fantasy.
A fantasy world isn't one with no rules. It has - or ought to have - an internal logic.
His point is that hammerspace, as it's used in the game, is not consistent with the logic of the game.
More generally - good fantasy has a few differences (e.g. particular kind of magic, monsters, etc.) and what makes it compelling is that the rest of the story is logical an consistent - it's a 'what-if' scenario not a - whatever we feel like at this moment scenario.
Second: He is not really "complaining" in the sense that he's upset. He's not asking for the game to change. If you like bags of holding and the various other stuff that makes the game less of a hassle but slightly less "realistic" (I know I do) then nothing he says here will change that. Its a personal preference that he wants to discuss. Many people play the game differently. I don't mind several of these things usually, since I find the practical benefits and "hassle-reduction" a fair trade for a little bit of immersion-breaking corniness. But others have different opinions, and may be interested in discussing them. I know I enjoyed reading this thread despite not looking to emulate the practices of many other posters when it comes to these things.
A lot of the bag of holding stuff isn't really defined in the rules, though. It's a pretty nonsensical thing. A lot of the descriptions for it refer to "non-dimensional space" which is already an oxymoron by any practical definition (if you have zero dimensions you're a point, not a space).
You'd better really hate that guy!
2 x bag of holding: 10,000 gp
The look on Sarevok's face: priceless
What both you and OP seems to fail to understand is that this is a game and not a perfect simulation of a "real" universe. In every game there are limits to what you can and can't do (due to the game's engine et cetera). In this game the developers have decided to do away with a certain amount of "realism" to make the game fun (or even at all playable). What the OP is basically doing is complaining that a game from the last millenium isn't following the rules of the real world, similar to complaining that you get free money or that you get sent to jail without a trial when playing monopoly. It's the rules of the *game* not the rules of the world the game is trying to represent. In doing so the OP completely missunderstands the very concept of this game.
As a side note, there is nothing that would prevent a bag of holding to have some sort of built-in spell that lets the bag "know" which item you are looking for and "giving" it to you. And you can't change armour doing battle, that is already in the game. And no real plate mail would weigh 85 pounds.
And as I already said, if one wishes to complain about the built-in mechanics of this game, there are things that are much worse than a quick and easy inventory screen.
Are you aware of cognitive dissonance? The innately human trait that allows us to hold two conflicting opinions/ideas simultaneously?
It *is* possible to enjoy a game and also wish certain elements were different/better. It is also possible to conceive different ways to play that game to compensate for those elements.
At no point does OP or @booinyoureyes suggest that the devs should even consider altering the mechanics of the game. OP just wanted to discuss a non-conforming approach amongst fellow geeks (not an insult btw - Geeks Rule).
heart=broken
Egon "Yes you do, stop whining and eat it"
Several of you did just that, and I thank you.
If anyone who shares my interest in real historical development of weaponry, armor, and military strategy knows any links to videos and photographs I could check out that might give me more ideas about how to imagine what it would be like to fight in a world of roughly the same technological and cultural development as in the Forgotten Realms, I'd love to take a look at it.
Usually armor (particularly bulky or heavy armor) would have to be fitted for the individual. For example, Minsc and Mazzy would not be able to wear the same set of plate mail whenever they wish. If you want realism, you could, whenever you find a new set of magical armor, got back to town and buy a new non-magical set of the same type. This could be you "pretending" that Mazzy visited the tailor and got the awesome Full Plate you found in Dungeon X sized just for her. In the middle ages they would often take pieces from other sets of armor to fit a new knight, particularly when armor was inherited (which was rarer than you think, since they took quite the beating). You could count the new armor you bought as the price for tailoring and the spare pieces that were necessary.
@booinyoureyes Your game is bugged if you're changing armor in combat
@belgarathmth Sounds like an interesting challenge. I wouldn't want it to be an obligatory part of the game, though. @booinyoureyes has a nice idea there and I've actually thought about the same thing myself when playing these type of games. Getting your very own full plate should be a great achievement, they aren't bought at supermarkets.
Also Potions of Explosion might be a bit scary, considering the hits you take and the amount of fire damage that is thrown you way.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?169343-How-are-weapons-carried-when-not-in-use
I'm still okay with magic-users in a party using magic to circumvent a lot of these problems, but I am currently playing a cleric/paladin in NWN, with no party other than one henchman, so I got interested in this again.
The thing with the "it's magic" solution that still concerns me, is that, if your wizard or witch is going to magically summon large weapons into the hands of your fighters at the right moment, or magically twitch his or her nose and change your fighter's halberd into a bow, then that should take a round of action, precluding the witch or wizard from casting a spell that round.
My research so far is indicating that in the real world, nobody carried weapons of war, as opposed to weapons of self-defense, unless they were actually in an infantry unit in a war. That includes weapons like polearms, greatswords, greataxes, and huge spiked flails, and all shields.
"Self-defense" weapons include sheathable smaller blades like daggers, rapiers, and shortswords, up to longswords at maximum.
Historically, small bands of "adventurers" who carried enough equipment to be prepared for anything, did not exist.
Just as a challenge to myself, though, and to increase my immersion in my games, I remain interested in keeping things as realistic as possible, including logical use of "magic", as seen on television like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the like. Notice that on these TV shows, especially the more recent "serious" ones like Charmed, Buffy, and Angel, as well as Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and Originals, and Game of Thrones, we do not see characters doing unbelievable things (according to a world where supernatural power exists), or breaking the laws of physics.
Even "magic" in all these shows follows a believable logic that doesn't require you to leave your brain at the door in order to become immersed.
I guess what I will do is to follow my own muse on this sort of thing, and to just self-restrict what I allow in my own gaming.
And, independently of rpg gaming, I remain fascinated by this subject, inspired by Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and D&D in general.
There have been several threads in the off-topic forums where various forumites have demonstrated quite a bit of knowledge about medieval warfare East and West, such as @Heindrich1988 and @LadyRhian.
My thanks to everyone who has shared knowledge and insight with me here.