I hate first person shooters pretty much as a rule(though I have very limited experience with console games, well, any games at all, really.)
Gotta tell you that the REAL First person shooters out there are for computer (and they are limited to Marathon, Doom, Dark Forces and Duke Nukem), where, if things sort of can be explained (Marathon uses the explanation 'your in outer space' for the 3-meters-long-jumps, which makes sense), they still fit (sometimes).
Also, Marathon (all of the series) has a pretty solid story (which was nearly wasted in a FPS) with very good background (if you actually read everything while you are getting shot by 36 creatures armed with grenade launchers…). Also, they are more like a Dungeon-crawling-FPS, since 70% of the game happens insides (well, on spaceships and that stuff) and you'll get shocked hundreds of time by monsters coming out of a sliding wall-door
Halo 1 was a good successor of Marathon engine-wise, Halo 1 it's still my favorite MP FPS (while Marathon (as a series) is my all-times-favorite).
Ha, never played Marathon or Dark Forces but I love Duke and I still play Doom (with the Brutal Doom mod). Still, I'd say shooters come in lots of fashions, the most popular one right now being the modern military setting. Like I said, even FPS can have a lot of realism (seriously, go look at ARMA, that's so realistic it should have a manual as big as a Paradox grand strategy game). There's one for each person and they can be very good games storywise (not a pure FPS, but look at Deus Ex or System/Bioshock). As for unrealistic shooters, I think a good approach on them is to just turn off your brain and fire away XD. Still, to each one his own and I don't want to look like a prick who thinks only he is right.
@InvictusCobra ah, yeah, I always forgot about those two (and Half-life too), even if I played Bioshock Infinite and said 'This game is inspired in PS:T' from start to end (actually I played both the start and the end but not the middle :P).
Anyways, I don't care about scantily clad men and women, if that's how they want to roll that's on them. Or not on them, pun, deal with it. What I DO care about is me. Or more specifically, my imagination. If you give me less reality I will activate more imagination. Nothing strengthens John Lennon's favorite tool more than (paper and pencil) PnP (role playing games) RPGs. Baldur's gate is a poorly dungeon mastered computer RPG. It's up to me to make it entertaining, I must fill in the voids with illumination from my mind.
That. I prefer playing a game which uses ANSI characters and has ASCII graphics before playing one that has horrid 3D graphics, but I guess it's just me, since I also prefer 2D to 3D and red to blue...
I play a game or watch a movie to be entertained, however, if I can start nitpicking things that don't make sense my entertainment is diminished as I am broken from that reality.
If I can suspend my belief for a moment, or give clarifying reasons to how something can suspend my beliefs in reality, then all the better.
For example, the boob plate example. Yes it is fan service and I would prefer if it would look somewhat realistic, however these are magical settings where armor is enhanced as much as the breast sizes. I can imagine in my mind, that there is a magical shield (much like a spirit armor spell) helping block that vulnerable area.
If my character can be reduced to 1 hp and still walk to the nearest temple without bleeding out that last HP, then I can believe that boob plate can sufficiently protect a female protagonist.
~
The more realistic the game is suppose to be (such as Grand Theft Auto) the more it does irk me to a degree.
I loathe the fact I can carry around a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher and a missile launcher unhindered both in mobility and law enforcement, that I can make magically appear and disappear whenever I like.
There is a difference between (lacking) realism in looks (breastplates, silly armor, useless spikes, illogical weapons,...) and realism in gameplay (need to eat/sleep/carry weight/...)
The former is a matter of taste. I too dislike huge armor and weapons, skimpy outfits (more what it says about the player using it than that it's an option, because customization and options are a good thing) and so on. I block players I never exchanged a single word with for having shitty names - I find it immersion breaking if NPCs keep addressing a knight, for example, as "Sir gobbledygoo72". Can't be that hard to just name the guy John like any other unimaginative player, can it? However, what qualifies as "realistic" in this category is usually up to the individual player. And for me, it's not that important that everything is realistic like the world we live in. It just needs to be consistant with the universe. A medieval knight named Kevin-Pascal Miller would probably stand out as inconsistant in a world where Alustriel Deepforest is a common name, despite being realistic in our world. If the game's premise is about having superpowers, using superweapons or other fantasy elements - monsters, races like elves and dwarves, whatever - I expect there to be lore that explains these elements in the context to that world, not ours.
The latter, realism in gameplay, can also mean different things. It can mean real time, it can mean a lot micromanagement, it can mean inconveniences. I'm fine with a certain amount of realism here. If it's a game about living beings (and not robots or ghosts or something), I expect there to be consumable food/drinks, but I'd find it annoying if I had to eat every 8 hours sharp or my character starves. Having food means I can roleplay the rest to "realism" without frustration (i.e. interrupting a mission to get food, carry around food despite limited inventory space - "realistic carry weight"). The same goes for similar things, i.e. sleep or healing. It's enough if it exists, but I don't want to be forced.
It's all about the internal consistency. If armor in a game is required for defense, then it should be consistently practical. If magic suffices for defense, then clothing (skimpy or otherwise) should be adequate and armor not required. These two points contribute to the completely nonsensical nature of the chainmail bikini and its ilk. Men running around in massive armor and women wearing a steel thong and iron pasties... wtf? It just makes absolutely no sense.
If a fictional world has everyone running around in loincloths and scraps of fabric then I suppose that's perfectly fine. I prefer an explanation for why warriors don't wear armor but at the very least I can accept that there's some cause which is contributing to nobody wearing armor. However, if you show me a world where the male warriors are strapping on full plate and packing steel and the female warriors are willingly donning some matching iron panties and bra and leaving themselves ridiculously exposed, well, I'll pass on that insane level of inconsistency.
okay, first of all, most interesting and well thought out poll on this forum I've seen so far. Love the detailed explanations. Really good job. Way to go Meatloaf!
Well, didn't see that coming. Thanks! also, don,t call me meatloaf. Good post to.
Interesting poll about willing suspension of disbelief. I notice and mentally remark on every unrealistic thing I see in a movie or game, but I put it aside as soon as I notice it as long as the story and characterization are good. I tend to be pretty forgiving with my willing suspension of disbelief, more so than a lot of people of I've met and most critics.
By "unrealistic", I mean the world of the story according to its own rules, not according to the rules of our own real world. A lot of fantasy and sci-fi can't keep its own rule system coherent and free of contradictions.
For example, if most of your story world follows real life physics and science, then so should the superheroes' powers. Like @Meagloth, I think that the Superman franchise is the most egregious offender here. Most of what Superman can do violates the laws of physics according to his world's own story premises.
It doesn't matter how strong he is; it is not physically possible for a being of his size to lift, say, a building or a huge ship, because the object would crumble and break apart around him due to having inadequate structural support against gravity in its now upended position. It gets more ludicrous if he is hovering in midair and holding up such an object. All that weight has to be supported somewhere, or it is going down.
It would be better to explain this kind of feat by saying that Superman has mental control over the force of gravity itself, than to say he can do it because he has infinite physical strength and can fly. And don't get me started on the flight - where is the thrust coming from? How is he navigating?
Yet, despite all this, I still enjoy Superman movies, including the last one. I thought it was just plain fun to watch Superman and Zod destroy Metropolis, and I liked the character examination also, when Superman decides to kill Zod rather than allow Zod to burn and kill an innocent family with children. I felt irritated with friends who wanted to criticize the movie to death. "Come on, I went to the movie for a couple of hours of mindless fun, and that's what I got. Let me enjoy it."
So I guess I am of two minds, with a lot of mixed and contradictory feelings and opinions about this issue.
Another point regarding this: I think it's important to draw a distinction between "realism" and "believability".
Nothing in any fantasy game will ever be truly realistic. You just killed a bunch of green skinned monsters and giant spiders, and looted their cave. You even skinned a giant rat and somehow got coins from its corpse. One of you can create fire from nothing by muttering pseudo-Latin words. Another can call upon a super-sentient being to instantly heal all wounds. A skinny elf maiden with slender arms can somehow pull a bow powerful enough to punch through mail. You left realism behind a long time ago. XD
But that doesn't mean all logic should be totally disregarded, and "it's fantasy!" is often used as an excuse to justify just about everything in RPGs that is totally unbelievable. Things still have to have rules, and for maximum immersion, the world should be believable, otherwise the story might as well be "you are god, use your do-what-I-want-it-to device to slay everything for no reason whatsoever!".
Fantasy RPGs can't be realistic, but they can be believable. There can be magic, as long as it makes sense within the context of the world, and operates under its own rules, and the wider implications must be considered (so everybody can fly? In that case, what's the use of walls? Why even have roads, and why build everything on the ground level?). There can be monsters, as long as they have a reason for existing and surviving long enough for you to kill them - goblins and orcs must have at least a primitive tribal society (in fact I'm quite a fan of the idea that goblin tribes make war on each other as often as other races, I hate it when all monsters cooperate with each other without a good reason for doing so). There can be fictional materials as long as their availability is appropriate, and their market value reflects this. Armour should look like it was made to protect, and every piece must have a reason for being there (even if that reason is vanity - fashion and vanity often have huge influences in armour styles, so maybe the fashion is to have big shoulder pads for no reason!), and its workmanship, and market value, should be appropriate to the setting (no RPG in the world has every appropriately represented the cost, or the usefulness, of plate armour - though that's mainly for balancing purposes and to prevent people buying it and becoming more or less indestructible). Even clothing should look like it was made for a reason - before designing an outfit, you should check each garment and think "why is he wearing this? Did he buy it, or make it himself? If so, why?" (inappropriate and poorly contrived clothing is a pet hate of mine in a lot of fantasy art), and weapons should at least look like they function as weapons. Villages have to look like they can survive without the hero's help (since they were there long before the hero arrived, and will be there long after he's departed), and bringing vast amounts of coin to a relatively poor region should cause a massive shift in the economy of that area - you shouldn't be able to bring in a Super Harness of Epic Doom and sell it to a village blacksmith for its full market value, because a village blacksmith has nowhere near that much cash, and even if he did, nobody in the village could hope to afford it, so its resale value would be more or less worthless unless he could somehow take it to the Big City.
Anyway, I'm waffling now, so I'll summarise: realism = bad for fantasy (but great for games based on reality obviously), believability = good for any game that claims to have any level of immersion.
I'm somewhere between 3 and 4. I get annoyed by too over-the-top action heroes, movies by that psycho Michael Bay are lowest of low and warrior females in a stripper-outfit are met with an annoyed grin. (Maybe influenced by the fact that I know how to fight in real life and know quite a lot about human anatomy and weapons, so spotting unrealistic things is far too easy)
However, I am willing to cut the work of fiction some slack, if they don't overdo it and it's a good or funny piece.
Another point regarding this: I think it's important to draw a distinction between "realism" and "believability".
Great post, and good point. I totally agree. I think a good way to put the poll question would be to say "how much realism is Necessary to make a game believable?".
Interesting poll about willing suspension of disbelief. I notice and mentally remark on every unrealistic thing I see in a movie or game, but I put it aside as soon as I notice it as long as the story and characterization are good.
Same here, except I don't have the self control to keep it in. I am going to the special hell.
If I am playing a game or watching a movie then I accept a certain amount of bending or breaking the rules of physics in order to enjoy the entertainment value. Last weekend the kids were gone so I watched Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace again. Some of the falls should have dislocated or broken Bond's shoulders, knees, or ribs but he gets up and stays in the action anyway. That is fine for him but if I were to do some of those things it would be a week before I could get out of the hospital and then I would spend the next year or so in physical therapy.
@Tuth the armor in that picture has massive shoulder pads in order to accentuate the wearer's masculinity. In reality, he wouldn't be able to walk in that much armor, presuming he could have it put on him in the first place.
On the topic of boobplate....women have breasts, a fact no one may ignore. Either the wearer needs to tape them down as much as possible, the breastplate needs to have a little extra room, or both (I recommend both). If someone is approaching you in armor and their weapon in drawn their gender doesn't matter--combat is imminent and you had best not be distracted by trying to figure out of those hips are swinging or not.
On the topic of boobplate....women have breasts, a fact no one may ignore. Either the wearer needs to tape them down as much as possible, the breastplate needs to have a little extra room, or both (I recommend both)..
Eh, sort of. With plate armor it's not like it's just over your clothes. You have clothes, LOTS of padding, maybe some leather, chain, and then plate. There's enough padding and such that breasts are almost irrelevant, especially on the athletic figure of an adventurer/fighter. Women's armor, *is* a different shape, however, especially when it's custom made. Despite the exaggeration of the fact, Women really are not men, and armor is not exactly one size fits all. You may have heard The us army is is implementing women's armor just now so it fits better. They had had to wear clothes for men before and the sizing issue actually cause difficulty and discomfort.
To me, the obsession with realism mostly applies to armour and weaponry, especially in medieval-ish settings. It also applies to some extent to fighting styles. I'll use some examples from Baldur's Gate here, since that's a game I'm sure we're all familiar with here, heh.
How exactly are you supposed to wield the Daystar with a hilt like this?
Were they trying to make a joke item when they drew the Ras sword?
In Drow society, it's apparently not a matter of form over function, it's a matter of evil over function. I guess Lolth only smiles on those who wield swords that hurt the wielder more than the opponent?
Carsomyr is what happens when an artist is told to convert his drawing of a spaceship into a sword design.
This mainly applies to Baldur's Gate 2, where the design direction seems to have gone from "medieval weapons with fantasy elements" to "outlandish nonsense", but BG1 is not perfect either. I understand the desire to design unique weapons and all, but maybe there's better ways to do so than to take sword design ideas from fourth graders.
@Rarayn huh. Really, those first to aren't so bad. The ras sword is even a littler *less* busy than a lot of the rapiers you see. The drow sword..... I dunno. It's just a sketch. Could it be done? Probably. Would it be done? Well, they're drow. So maybe. Carsomyr is a bit over the top.
The downward spikes of the Daystar would make it nigh impossible to hold in a way that it could be used as an actual weapon. It's a pointless detail that can only harm the wielder. No smith would ever make such a sword for actual use in combat.
Ras Sword isn't *that* bad, but unlike on a rapier the "details" on the hilt serve no purpose and only get in the way. It's bad sword design. It's not like on a rapier where the hilt is often designed to protect the hand in one way or another.
As you can see, they do look a bit busy, but unlike on Ras Sword, the details serve a purpose and don't get in the way of holding the sword effectively. The point is to protect the hand, not to add pointless decorative details.
As for the Drow Sword...I can certainly see the Drow deciding to make such a sword, but how they'd be a feared force in the Underdark with such wildly impractical blades is a mystery to me. Tetanus is probably the greatest threat to Drow society.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of when I mentioned weapons that look impractical. What's most annoying, though, is that these weapons are typically better than the ordinary looking ones (the ones that actually look like weapons) - those ones are "mundane", hence inferior, to the crazy spiked hilt ones. There are plenty of historical sources from which to draw inspiration if you want unique looking weapons...like those Italian rapiers and the broadsword, shown above, which were clearly an inspiration for some of the BG2 weapons, only they got it a bit wrong.
For those who don't know, on the Italian rapiers, the blunted section of the blade by the hilt is called a ricasso, and is designed so that you can wrap your forefinger around the guard for more point control - the extra quillions are designed to protect your finger when using it like this. The Ras sword is clearly not designed with that function in mind.
Tetanus is probably the greatest threat to Drow society
I don't think the drow know what is a tetanus even if they wanted to and I bet they wouldn't wanna know lol
As for what I think about all this, I think that fantasy is important and that each world should have his own logic and I wouldn't want realism in everything in that world but it should be consistent with his logic.
Games, movies, books, and you name what should be entertain it a way to leave our world with all the rules we got for ourselves and just relax, enjoy, leave worries behind, run away to a different better world (for people that this world is hard on them and find themselves wanting to be elsewhere, or feeling more at home and belong to that other world then in their own world), any one of us have his own reason to be entertain, and I think realism mostly get in the way of thing like that, but like I said there should be logic in the world and consistency of it but it not like I have to understand it completely, that all the beauty in fantasy that it have super power, it have thing unnatural that one can't explain it (like the talk here about superman that can lift heavy stuff and fly and it all against the gravity of his world).
As for cloth and breast armor well as a woman I surely will like a comfortable armor that I can breath in it and it won't suffocate me if I would ever had to wear one in one of this worlds, yeah sure it should be practical and fit for the purpose I'm waring the cloth and wearing a bikini or a tight cloth like wonder woman isn't fit for fighting or protection, but that how it is in some worlds so ok I get it but sometimes it because the one who wear it is a woman and I think some women in the fantasy got their cloths basically from an unbalance way of thinking about women not equally to the men who got their full armor and not running around half naked (maybe except Tarzan but that his character), it like some women are there just for the show of thing and not really for fighting.
And as for weapons that looks ridiculously big (like Dragon age 2) or not fit for holding like @Rarayn here mention well in some cases yeah ok it ridiculous and not logically in our eyes but hey it works in the games and being used maybe it a bit different in the game who knows it is a fantasy after all I don't have to fully understand it to enjoy it
I don't have enough time in the day to read all the great threads and comments on this forum, but I'd just like to toss my own opinion in.
Like a few of the other people here, it depends for me. I think Archaos summed up my opinion the best. It depends on the setting. I LOVE realism. But if it's a fantasy game with magic and non-realistic flora and fauna, then I don't mind at all. For that setting, it IS realistic. But I do appreciate realistic weapons/armor/combat styles. I can't stand dual wielding and almost never use it in BG. On the other hand, I can appreciate it if it's approached in a more realistic way. For instance, I have a ranger character in BG. Obviously rangers naturally get two pips in dual wield. So how do I role-play it? He uses a dagger in his off hand for parrying. Now in game terms, he fights with it. But in my terms? It's a parrying knife, used for blocking blows and occasionally getting a quick stab in. Nothing more.
Some days I want nothing more than pure realism. I've done a (relatively speaking) "lot" of work on conceptualizing and equipment/world/character writing for a (mostly) realistic medieval RPG. Not a fantasy RPG. A medieval one. An example of how it's realistic:
Armor:
Armor is defined by three things to define it's armor rating.
1. Material: The materials are your standard bronze/iron/steel type of deal. However, just as ore from one mine is different in quality to ore from another mine, so does it work in this game. You may have two iron helmets, but one of them is called a (random name I just came up with) Jist'il iron helmet and a For'thuun iron helmet. The Jist'il iron helmet is higher quality because the Jist'il mine provides superior ore.
2. Quality: There are five qualities of craftsmanship in the world. Rusted, Poor, Average, Fine, and Mastercraft. Different smiths have different skill, and therefore produce different quality pieces.
3. Type: This one is pretty self explanatory. Chainmail v.s. splintmail. etc. etc. Certain classes (the characters in the game are pre-made and there are only eight of them) have different types of armor they can wear, so not everyone can wear the best plate, but the type still matters when deciding between two pieces of armor for a character.
Conclusion: A standard piece of armor would be called... "Fine Jist'il Iron Helmet" So you have three adjectives (for a standard item. Some things, like different types of swords, might have one more) that define the quality of the piece. Now you have a way to increase what at first seems like a very basic armor system with only 25 or so different types of armor into a large traditional RPG system that allows for many many different items. It might seem a little complicated or convoluted to some people, but I feel like this allows for a standard RPG item upgrade system to be placed into an incredibly realistic medieval RPG.
Anyway. Random tangent over. Sorry. =p
Also, props to @Tuth for the Skallagrim vid. I love that guy.
Comments
If I can suspend my belief for a moment, or give clarifying reasons to how something can suspend my beliefs in reality, then all the better.
For example, the boob plate example. Yes it is fan service and I would prefer if it would look somewhat realistic, however these are magical settings where armor is enhanced as much as the breast sizes. I can imagine in my mind, that there is a magical shield (much like a spirit armor spell) helping block that vulnerable area.
If my character can be reduced to 1 hp and still walk to the nearest temple without bleeding out that last HP, then I can believe that boob plate can sufficiently protect a female protagonist.
~
The more realistic the game is suppose to be (such as Grand Theft Auto) the more it does irk me to a degree.
I loathe the fact I can carry around a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher and a missile launcher unhindered both in mobility and law enforcement, that I can make magically appear and disappear whenever I like.
The former is a matter of taste. I too dislike huge armor and weapons, skimpy outfits (more what it says about the player using it than that it's an option, because customization and options are a good thing) and so on. I block players I never exchanged a single word with for having shitty names - I find it immersion breaking if NPCs keep addressing a knight, for example, as "Sir gobbledygoo72". Can't be that hard to just name the guy John like any other unimaginative player, can it?
However, what qualifies as "realistic" in this category is usually up to the individual player. And for me, it's not that important that everything is realistic like the world we live in. It just needs to be consistant with the universe. A medieval knight named Kevin-Pascal Miller would probably stand out as inconsistant in a world where Alustriel Deepforest is a common name, despite being realistic in our world.
If the game's premise is about having superpowers, using superweapons or other fantasy elements - monsters, races like elves and dwarves, whatever - I expect there to be lore that explains these elements in the context to that world, not ours.
The latter, realism in gameplay, can also mean different things. It can mean real time, it can mean a lot micromanagement, it can mean inconveniences. I'm fine with a certain amount of realism here. If it's a game about living beings (and not robots or ghosts or something), I expect there to be consumable food/drinks, but I'd find it annoying if I had to eat every 8 hours sharp or my character starves. Having food means I can roleplay the rest to "realism" without frustration (i.e. interrupting a mission to get food, carry around food despite limited inventory space - "realistic carry weight"). The same goes for similar things, i.e. sleep or healing. It's enough if it exists, but I don't want to be forced.
If a fictional world has everyone running around in loincloths and scraps of fabric then I suppose that's perfectly fine. I prefer an explanation for why warriors don't wear armor but at the very least I can accept that there's some cause which is contributing to nobody wearing armor. However, if you show me a world where the male warriors are strapping on full plate and packing steel and the female warriors are willingly donning some matching iron panties and bra and leaving themselves ridiculously exposed, well, I'll pass on that insane level of inconsistency.
Good post to.
By "unrealistic", I mean the world of the story according to its own rules, not according to the rules of our own real world. A lot of fantasy and sci-fi can't keep its own rule system coherent and free of contradictions.
For example, if most of your story world follows real life physics and science, then so should the superheroes' powers. Like @Meagloth, I think that the Superman franchise is the most egregious offender here. Most of what Superman can do violates the laws of physics according to his world's own story premises.
It doesn't matter how strong he is; it is not physically possible for a being of his size to lift, say, a building or a huge ship, because the object would crumble and break apart around him due to having inadequate structural support against gravity in its now upended position. It gets more ludicrous if he is hovering in midair and holding up such an object. All that weight has to be supported somewhere, or it is going down.
It would be better to explain this kind of feat by saying that Superman has mental control over the force of gravity itself, than to say he can do it because he has infinite physical strength and can fly. And don't get me started on the flight - where is the thrust coming from? How is he navigating?
Yet, despite all this, I still enjoy Superman movies, including the last one. I thought it was just plain fun to watch Superman and Zod destroy Metropolis, and I liked the character examination also, when Superman decides to kill Zod rather than allow Zod to burn and kill an innocent family with children. I felt irritated with friends who wanted to criticize the movie to death. "Come on, I went to the movie for a couple of hours of mindless fun, and that's what I got. Let me enjoy it."
So I guess I am of two minds, with a lot of mixed and contradictory feelings and opinions about this issue.
Nothing in any fantasy game will ever be truly realistic. You just killed a bunch of green skinned monsters and giant spiders, and looted their cave. You even skinned a giant rat and somehow got coins from its corpse. One of you can create fire from nothing by muttering pseudo-Latin words. Another can call upon a super-sentient being to instantly heal all wounds. A skinny elf maiden with slender arms can somehow pull a bow powerful enough to punch through mail. You left realism behind a long time ago. XD
But that doesn't mean all logic should be totally disregarded, and "it's fantasy!" is often used as an excuse to justify just about everything in RPGs that is totally unbelievable. Things still have to have rules, and for maximum immersion, the world should be believable, otherwise the story might as well be "you are god, use your do-what-I-want-it-to device to slay everything for no reason whatsoever!".
Fantasy RPGs can't be realistic, but they can be believable. There can be magic, as long as it makes sense within the context of the world, and operates under its own rules, and the wider implications must be considered (so everybody can fly? In that case, what's the use of walls? Why even have roads, and why build everything on the ground level?). There can be monsters, as long as they have a reason for existing and surviving long enough for you to kill them - goblins and orcs must have at least a primitive tribal society (in fact I'm quite a fan of the idea that goblin tribes make war on each other as often as other races, I hate it when all monsters cooperate with each other without a good reason for doing so). There can be fictional materials as long as their availability is appropriate, and their market value reflects this. Armour should look like it was made to protect, and every piece must have a reason for being there (even if that reason is vanity - fashion and vanity often have huge influences in armour styles, so maybe the fashion is to have big shoulder pads for no reason!), and its workmanship, and market value, should be appropriate to the setting (no RPG in the world has every appropriately represented the cost, or the usefulness, of plate armour - though that's mainly for balancing purposes and to prevent people buying it and becoming more or less indestructible). Even clothing should look like it was made for a reason - before designing an outfit, you should check each garment and think "why is he wearing this? Did he buy it, or make it himself? If so, why?" (inappropriate and poorly contrived clothing is a pet hate of mine in a lot of fantasy art), and weapons should at least look like they function as weapons. Villages have to look like they can survive without the hero's help (since they were there long before the hero arrived, and will be there long after he's departed), and bringing vast amounts of coin to a relatively poor region should cause a massive shift in the economy of that area - you shouldn't be able to bring in a Super Harness of Epic Doom and sell it to a village blacksmith for its full market value, because a village blacksmith has nowhere near that much cash, and even if he did, nobody in the village could hope to afford it, so its resale value would be more or less worthless unless he could somehow take it to the Big City.
Anyway, I'm waffling now, so I'll summarise: realism = bad for fantasy (but great for games based on reality obviously), believability = good for any game that claims to have any level of immersion.
However, I am willing to cut the work of fiction some slack, if they don't overdo it and it's a good or funny piece.
@Tuth the armor in that picture has massive shoulder pads in order to accentuate the wearer's masculinity. In reality, he wouldn't be able to walk in that much armor, presuming he could have it put on him in the first place.
On the topic of boobplate....women have breasts, a fact no one may ignore. Either the wearer needs to tape them down as much as possible, the breastplate needs to have a little extra room, or both (I recommend both). If someone is approaching you in armor and their weapon in drawn their gender doesn't matter--combat is imminent and you had best not be distracted by trying to figure out of those hips are swinging or not.
How exactly are you supposed to wield the Daystar with a hilt like this?
Were they trying to make a joke item when they drew the Ras sword?
In Drow society, it's apparently not a matter of form over function, it's a matter of evil over function. I guess Lolth only smiles on those who wield swords that hurt the wielder more than the opponent?
Carsomyr is what happens when an artist is told to convert his drawing of a spaceship into a sword design.
This mainly applies to Baldur's Gate 2, where the design direction seems to have gone from "medieval weapons with fantasy elements" to "outlandish nonsense", but BG1 is not perfect either. I understand the desire to design unique weapons and all, but maybe there's better ways to do so than to take sword design ideas from fourth graders.
Ras Sword isn't *that* bad, but unlike on a rapier the "details" on the hilt serve no purpose and only get in the way. It's bad sword design. It's not like on a rapier where the hilt is often designed to protect the hand in one way or another.
As you can see, they do look a bit busy, but unlike on Ras Sword, the details serve a purpose and don't get in the way of holding the sword effectively. The point is to protect the hand, not to add pointless decorative details.
As for the Drow Sword...I can certainly see the Drow deciding to make such a sword, but how they'd be a feared force in the Underdark with such wildly impractical blades is a mystery to me. Tetanus is probably the greatest threat to Drow society.
For those who don't know, on the Italian rapiers, the blunted section of the blade by the hilt is called a ricasso, and is designed so that you can wrap your forefinger around the guard for more point control - the extra quillions are designed to protect your finger when using it like this. The Ras sword is clearly not designed with that function in mind.
I don't think the drow know what is a tetanus even if they wanted to and I bet they wouldn't wanna know lol
As for what I think about all this, I think that fantasy is important and that each world should have his own logic and I wouldn't want realism in everything in that world but it should be consistent with his logic.
Games, movies, books, and you name what should be entertain it a way to leave our world with all the rules we got for ourselves and just relax, enjoy, leave worries behind, run away to a different better world (for people that this world is hard on them and find themselves wanting to be elsewhere, or feeling more at home and belong to that other world then in their own world), any one of us have his own reason to be entertain, and I think realism mostly get in the way of thing like that, but like I said there should be logic in the world and consistency of it but it not like I have to understand it completely, that all the beauty in fantasy that it have super power, it have thing unnatural that one can't explain it (like the talk here about superman that can lift heavy stuff and fly and it all against the gravity of his world).
As for cloth and breast armor well as a woman I surely will like a comfortable armor that I can breath in it and it won't suffocate me if I would ever had to wear one in one of this worlds, yeah sure it should be practical and fit for the purpose I'm waring the cloth and wearing a bikini or a tight cloth like wonder woman isn't fit for fighting or protection, but that how it is in some worlds so ok I get it but sometimes it because the one who wear it is a woman and I think some women in the fantasy got their cloths basically from an unbalance way of thinking about women not equally to the men who got their full armor and not running around half naked (maybe except Tarzan but that his character), it like some women are there just for the show of thing and not really for fighting.
And as for weapons that looks ridiculously big (like Dragon age 2) or not fit for holding like @Rarayn here mention well in some cases yeah ok it ridiculous and not logically in our eyes but hey it works in the games and being used maybe it a bit different in the game who knows it is a fantasy after all I don't have to fully understand it to enjoy it
Like a few of the other people here, it depends for me. I think Archaos summed up my opinion the best. It depends on the setting. I LOVE realism. But if it's a fantasy game with magic and non-realistic flora and fauna, then I don't mind at all. For that setting, it IS realistic. But I do appreciate realistic weapons/armor/combat styles. I can't stand dual wielding and almost never use it in BG. On the other hand, I can appreciate it if it's approached in a more realistic way. For instance, I have a ranger character in BG. Obviously rangers naturally get two pips in dual wield. So how do I role-play it? He uses a dagger in his off hand for parrying. Now in game terms, he fights with it. But in my terms? It's a parrying knife, used for blocking blows and occasionally getting a quick stab in. Nothing more.
Some days I want nothing more than pure realism. I've done a (relatively speaking) "lot" of work on conceptualizing and equipment/world/character writing for a (mostly) realistic medieval RPG. Not a fantasy RPG. A medieval one. An example of how it's realistic:
Armor:
Armor is defined by three things to define it's armor rating.
1. Material:
The materials are your standard bronze/iron/steel type of deal. However, just as ore from one mine is different in quality to ore from another mine, so does it work in this game. You may have two iron helmets, but one of them is called a (random name I just came up with) Jist'il iron helmet and a For'thuun iron helmet. The Jist'il iron helmet is higher quality because the Jist'il mine provides superior ore.
2. Quality:
There are five qualities of craftsmanship in the world. Rusted, Poor, Average, Fine, and Mastercraft. Different smiths have different skill, and therefore produce different quality pieces.
3. Type:
This one is pretty self explanatory. Chainmail v.s. splintmail. etc. etc. Certain classes (the characters in the game are pre-made and there are only eight of them) have different types of armor they can wear, so not everyone can wear the best plate, but the type still matters when deciding between two pieces of armor for a character.
Conclusion:
A standard piece of armor would be called... "Fine Jist'il Iron Helmet" So you have three adjectives (for a standard item. Some things, like different types of swords, might have one more) that define the quality of the piece. Now you have a way to increase what at first seems like a very basic armor system with only 25 or so different types of armor into a large traditional RPG system that allows for many many different items. It might seem a little complicated or convoluted to some people, but I feel like this allows for a standard RPG item upgrade system to be placed into an incredibly realistic medieval RPG.
Anyway. Random tangent over. Sorry. =p
Also, props to @Tuth for the Skallagrim vid. I love that guy.