Accuracy

Matthew McFarland

As the developer of a “historical” role-playing game, the question of accuracy comes up quite a lot in discussions about the books that I oversee. The discussion is, mildly put, not always favorable. I’ve got my own feelings on how accurate a role-playing game should be (and they will, in fact, come up later in this essay), but I think I’m objective enough to examine the pros and cons of running a “true to life” game, historical or otherwise, versus playing reality fast and loose. And hence, this essay.

Whether it’s a matter of “accurate” science in a sci-fi game, history in a game like Dark Ages: Vampire, or simply gunplay in a modern-setting game, there’s always someone who knows what’s “real.” Any gamer who knows anything about a specific topic has the potential to be the knowledgeable one if the plot turns to matters familiar to her. And that’s often when the trouble starts.

When you’re learned on a topic, it often becomes important to you, and it galls you to see folks “get it wrong.” For example, I happen to know how handguns work. When you cock a semi-automatic pistol (sliding the top part of it back, which looks cool as hell on screen) you chamber the first bullet. If you were to cock it again, you’d eject the first bullet and chamber the next one; when you fire the gun, the recoil of the shot forces the slide back and — you guessed it — chambers the next round while ejecting the shell. Since I happen to know that little process, films in which the hero repeatedly cocks a pistol without losing any shells or firing the gun bug me (likewise, it annoys me when the hero just drops an empty clip and leaves it there — those things aren’t cheap!).

Along these lines, a history buff reading any Dark Ages book might be galled by any number of historical inaccuracies. I’m not going to list them off, because frankly I find it depressing, but I do acknowledge that you can’t ace a history test by reading Dark Ages: Europe. Similarly, I’m pretty sure that playing Star Wars isn’t any substitution for a physics class. Said history buffs often become annoyed at all of the mistakes in our books, and I’ve got really mixed feelings on how to respond.

On the one hand, I hate sloppy research. I learned about sharks to write Rokea, and have heard from a couple of very knowledgeable readers that I had a pretty good bead on the animal and its habits. I like it when my Dark Ages authors make assertions that they can support. I like it when my editors check historical facts, and I’ve gotten into the habit of sending manuscripts off to folks with history degrees to check stuff over before the books go into editing (Dark Ages: Europe did not get this treatment, before you ask, but I had other horrors with that book). I like continuity to be tight, I like the facts to be factual, and I like it all to stand up to scrutiny because I’m a control freak, and control freaks like things to make sense.

And on the other hand…it’s a game.

I know that sounds like cop-out, but follow me through here. We’re not producing textbooks. I’ve read history. Most history texts are dull as paste. I don’t want to produce stuff that’s dull. Does that mean that we can’t represent real history without boring the audience? Not at all, but that brings me to my next point…

We’re not publishing history books, here. (I know I repeated that point. It’s important.) If it comes down to publishing information on the Hanseatic League or publishing information on what the Lasombra are doing meddling about with the Hanseatic League, I’ll skimp on the “real world” stuff and go for the vampires. The reasoning on this is pretty simple: You can go to the library and learn about real history, but the only source for game-specific material is the books for the game.

And lest that sound like another cop-out, consider this. Not everyone is looking for the same degree of “realism.” In fact, the majority of people that I’ve spoken to on the subject are much more interested in reading game supplements that detail the setting of the game rather than the real world, and that means focusing on the supernatural. Comparatively few are interested in reading game books that serve to educate the reader on medieval history. I realize that some people are, in fact, interested in representing the “real world” in their games. A certain degree of realism is necessary in a horror game; if it’s not at least within one’s suspension of disbelief, it’s hard to feel afraid for the character. But I would contend that someone who is prepared to be anal about, say, whether the Holy Roman Empire was called the “Holy Empire” in Hamburg in 1230 is probably learned enough that we wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t know even if we did devote an entire chapter to the real-world history of the city. What this means is that games that make use of real-world settings, either historical or modern ones, need to be playable first and accurate second.

Now, does all of this mean that a game can’t be both accurate and playable? No, not in the slightest, and that’s why I do my best to make sure that any inaccuracies in the books I work on are deliberate rather than accidental.

Deliberate inaccuracies? Sure. Like the castles in Transylvania by Night. Or the fact that we refer to the public face of the Inquisition as the “Holy Office” (which is anachronistic term) in Dark Ages: Inquisitor. Or, how about the fact that vampires exist at all? That’s one of the most common arguments against slavish adherence to real-world history or science; that folks are willing to accept that vampires and so forth exist in the setting but not, say, that folks are using a variety of broadsword that isn’t actually developed for another century.

The counter to this argument, of course, is that a lot of the mistakes are pretty obviously mistakes. Oxford, for example, is not in London. We know that. It was probably a misprint, and it slipped by the developer and the editor because the book in question (Dark Ages: Mage) was rushed anyway. That paragraph was one tiny section in a chapter, and that mistake got pretty bad blown out of proportion (although I don’t know, if someone tried to tell me that the University of Toledo was in Detroit, maybe I’d raise hell, too). To this kind of thing, I say the same thing I do when a “page XX” slips into print — “Whoops.” I can try to fix it in future printings, if there are any, or we can include errata in future books or perhaps on the website (it could happen).

The problem that comes up, though, is that now we have books that have both deliberate changes to history and accidental flub-ups. So, in any given case, which is it? And what should the player or Storyteller do about it? (Here’s where I step out of my role as a White Wolf employee and just start giving you my own personal feelings on the matter.)

When faced with an obviously glaring inaccuracy in a gaming book, I’ll usually do one of two things:

1) Run with it.

2) Ignore it.

If the inaccuracy was obviously included as a change befitting the setting, I’ll just go with it, accepting it as part of the game just like the rules or any other setting detail (that is, changeable at a moment’s notice should I decide it doesn’t work for me). If it looks like someone screwed up, I’ll usually ignore it. If I don’t notice the difference — who cares? I don’t know the difference anyway.

The friction comes, I think, from folks who know the difference and then feel compelled to tell the world about it, ignoring anything positive a book might have to say because the company screwed up the length of a spear. My response to that is, “what good are you really doing?” Recently, on the RPG.Net forum, someone asserted that pretty much any correction made during a game is unconsciously followed by “you idiot.” (As in, “Spears in 1230 were a foot longer than that, you idiot.”) I’m not sure it’s that bad, but certainly there’s an air of superiority that accompanies self-professed experts.

I’ll happily concede that there are folks out there who know more about history than me (quite a lot of them, in fact). But I also think that whether you know history (or science or whatever) or not, a well-written game book should provide ideas and inspiration for the players and the Storyteller regardless of whether or not it gets the facts right.

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