This is a stealth version of Dungeons and Dragons. That is, the players believe they are playing the late Mr. Gygax's venerable RPG, but the DM has explicit instructions on how to direct the circumstances of play according to one simple principle: there are no gods, and there are no such things as magic, faeries, demons or other mythical creatures or other supernatural elements - they are all figments of vivid imaginations. The instructions of play maximize the players' continued superstition and beliefs through the use of the placebo effect, psychosomatic reactions and mass delusion, but in reality the magic items, spells, charms and curses are only of the effect that the player allows them to be, and even barely that. They will never encounter dragons, demons, wraiths, orcs, goblins or elves, though indications around them indicate that they ought to. If a player's charcter is elven, well then in reality he or she only believes they are. That kind of thing. Great fun for the first player that becomes "enlightened" to the reality and takes advantage of it!-- globaltourniquet, May 27 2008 [+] but... but... :(-- FlyingToaster, May 27 2008 Fails saving throw against boredom. We play fantasy games are to *escape* reality, not mimic it!!
Btw, I did once play an RPG game that purported to make role-playing "realistic" - there were still ogres and things, but they were mighty tough to beat, and there was still magical treasure, but it took an age to find even one piece of gold. Like I said, I played it once.
But, yeah, I could see doing this as an April's Fool.-- DrCurry, May 27 2008 Baked: life-- Noexit, May 27 2008 True Story ---> During my first deployment, Me and four others in my platoon had our D&D stuff shipped over to us and began playing a campaign. (Had a lot more free time in 1st deployment)
After our platoon fought our way out of a vicious little ambush north of Baquba, our DM got on the radio and transmitted the following:
"All dungeons and dragons players award yourselves 2000 experience points, over"-- MikeD, May 27 2008 You could do that with GURPS. Someone i know insists that the D&D system is as flexible as GURPS. Is that true?-- nineteenthly, May 31 2008 I would maintain that Gurps looses a lot of flexibilty for using hex grids. I would also maintain that the rules for D&D, especially those devised for D20... aside from their crap treatment of guns, mecha and vehicles... are easier to understand than those for GURPS.-- ye_river_xiv, May 31 2008 M-F-D: cruelty. You want to suck all the excitement and interesting bits out of what is, for so many nerds and even a few normal people, their most exciting socialization vehicle? That's harsh.-- elhigh, Jun 12 2008 random, halfbakery