Despite my counter-rant, I actually agree with you on many points... but it's not just D&D that breaks many of the "realism" aspects of gaming. It's actually seriously hard to model "real world" aspects to a fantasy setting, even with one that limits magic to low power levels. Magic's affect on the reality and society of the game world means that they're all "unrealistic".
Let's take a quick macroscopic look at fantasy settings:
1) Monsters -- Let's face it. Most RP games are about fighting "monsters" which is the fun part, but from an ecological standpoint, no world could sustain the immense number of carnivores that many fantasy settings portray. Where do all these creatures get their food? The number of prey species would have to be astronomical to feed all those "evil" creatures roaming the wilderness.
2) Giants -- I don't just mean really big humanoids, but all overly large creatures as well. How are they getting the thousands upon thousands of calories required to sustain their bodies? Bipedal giants would have a difficult time standing if they had a humanoid body structure. The biophysics are all wrong.
3) The Golden Economy -- Who the heck are all these people leaving hundreds, even thousands, of precious coins in various ruined castles and such? At the rate the typical adventurer finds treasure, local economies would be devestated by inflation. Precious metals seem terribly common in fantasy. Who needs to be a king? Apparently, all the money and power lies in being a scavenging adventurer.
4) Magic - This is a huge one, but I'll try to be brief as I've touched on some points before. Even low level use of magic would transform a world. Let's say that magic in your game world doesn't allow for the massive firebombs or devestating attacks such as in D&D... Even a small amount of magic would vastly change society.
A villiage with an agricultural mage/cleric could produce an excess of food goods even if spells only slightly enhanced crop growth. Starvation and disease would decline sharply as the population was better nourished. Drought would pose a much smaller threat if mages could create even a small rain shower's amount of water on a regular basis, so agriculture would be completely transformed. Magic-based agri-businesses would likely spring up as groups of these mages/clerics formed business alliances and decided to corner the trade of certain crops.
Even if you disallow powerful magic like teleport, transporation would be revolutionized by spells like speed, haste, levitation, etc... Anything that would allow a heavier load to be more easily transported would be akin to a modern railway system. It would get goods to market faster and easier thereby changing the economic landscape.
Levitation, flight and invisibility would completely change politics. Unpopular leaders would be culled quickers than you can say "No Kennedy conspiracy." Given that fact, any power structure would protect itself by outlawing magic (or at the very least trying to control it with an iron fist). And you don't need a Trojan Horse if a few of your soldiers can quietly and easily enter the enemy's city and open the gates for your army.
Even if you discount political assassination, information gathering magic (sure as scrying, far seeing, etc) would create massive spy networks and constant political change due to the excess of information on one's enemies. Even used in the most benign ways, information/communication magic would probably create some form of magic based mass media, which has its own ripple effects into the economy, politics and other areas of society.
As I mentioned previously, magical advances would replace technological advances and still transform society very quickly in a similar way that trains, autos, airplanes, the industrial revolution and information technology has transformed ours.
These are just a few small examples why magic, even at the lowest power levels, could easily break what our notions of a fantasy society would entail. So, you either say, "To heck with realism! I just want a fun game with Arthurian-style knights and Tolkien style elves and goblins running around hitting each other with swords!" and go with it, or you have to completely revamp the fantasy game concept from the ground up.
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On another note, one of the reasons I've always liked GURPS is the low-power nature of the magic system. On the flip side, they way GURPS tries to model reality means character death is a more likely occurrence and the combat mechanics are slower than games like D&D (although D&D sure has caught up in combat complexity of late)...
Anyone tried Monte Cooke's Iron Heroes? It's supposed to be a much more low-magic version of d20, but I haven't really gotten a look at it.
It might be interesting to set up a wiki about a low-magic fantasy world and have a number of contributing authors asking the tough questions like we are and see what results from it. Of course, it might also devolve into chaos as everyone's ideas of "what would really happen" would probably conflict on all levels. :)
Tzuriel,
Despite my counter-rant, I actually agree with you on many points... but it's not just D&D that breaks many of the "realism" aspects of gaming. It's actually seriously hard to model "real world" aspects to a fantasy setting, even with one that limits magic to low power levels. Magic's affect on the reality and society of the game world means that they're all "unrealistic".
Let's take a quick macroscopic look at fantasy settings:
1) Monsters -- Let's face it. Most RP games are about fighting "monsters" which is the fun part, but from an ecological standpoint, no world could sustain the immense number of carnivores that many fantasy settings portray. Where do all these creatures get their food? The number of prey species would have to be astronomical to feed all those "evil" creatures roaming the wilderness.
2) Giants -- I don't just mean really big humanoids, but all overly large creatures as well. How are they getting the thousands upon thousands of calories required to sustain their bodies? Bipedal giants would have a difficult time standing if they had a humanoid body structure. The biophysics are all wrong.
3) The Golden Economy -- Who the heck are all these people leaving hundreds, even thousands, of precious coins in various ruined castles and such? At the rate the typical adventurer finds treasure, local economies would be devestated by inflation. Precious metals seem terribly common in fantasy. Who needs to be a king? Apparently, all the money and power lies in being a scavenging adventurer.
4) Magic - This is a huge one, but I'll try to be brief as I've touched on some points before. Even low level use of magic would transform a world. Let's say that magic in your game world doesn't allow for the massive firebombs or devestating attacks such as in D&D... Even a small amount of magic would vastly change society.
A villiage with an agricultural mage/cleric could produce an excess of food goods even if spells only slightly enhanced crop growth. Starvation and disease would decline sharply as the population was better nourished. Drought would pose a much smaller threat if mages could create even a small rain shower's amount of water on a regular basis, so agriculture would be completely transformed. Magic-based agri-businesses would likely spring up as groups of these mages/clerics formed business alliances and decided to corner the trade of certain crops.
Even if you disallow powerful magic like teleport, transporation would be revolutionized by spells like speed, haste, levitation, etc... Anything that would allow a heavier load to be more easily transported would be akin to a modern railway system. It would get goods to market faster and easier thereby changing the economic landscape.
Levitation, flight and invisibility would completely change politics. Unpopular leaders would be culled quickers than you can say "No Kennedy conspiracy." Given that fact, any power structure would protect itself by outlawing magic (or at the very least trying to control it with an iron fist). And you don't need a Trojan Horse if a few of your soldiers can quietly and easily enter the enemy's city and open the gates for your army.
Even if you discount political assassination, information gathering magic (sure as scrying, far seeing, etc) would create massive spy networks and constant political change due to the excess of information on one's enemies. Even used in the most benign ways, information/communication magic would probably create some form of magic based mass media, which has its own ripple effects into the economy, politics and other areas of society.
As I mentioned previously, magical advances would replace technological advances and still transform society very quickly in a similar way that trains, autos, airplanes, the industrial revolution and information technology has transformed ours.
These are just a few small examples why magic, even at the lowest power levels, could easily break what our notions of a fantasy society would entail. So, you either say, "To heck with realism! I just want a fun game with Arthurian-style knights and Tolkien style elves and goblins running around hitting each other with swords!" and go with it, or you have to completely revamp the fantasy game concept from the ground up.
----------------------
On another note, one of the reasons I've always liked GURPS is the low-power nature of the magic system. On the flip side, they way GURPS tries to model reality means character death is a more likely occurrence and the combat mechanics are slower than games like D&D (although D&D sure has caught up in combat complexity of late)...
Anyone tried Monte Cooke's Iron Heroes? It's supposed to be a much more low-magic version of d20, but I haven't really gotten a look at it.
It might be interesting to set up a wiki about a low-magic fantasy world and have a number of contributing authors asking the tough questions like we are and see what results from it. Of course, it might also devolve into chaos as everyone's ideas of "what would really happen" would probably conflict on all levels. :)