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Old 05-03-2021, 12:04 PM
unipus unipus is offline
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Even harder since we're living in the age of disinformation now, and people have come to wildly different conclusions regarding the very same events. Hard to have common ground on some topics of plausibility. For instance, it seems an issue some folks had about the V4 background was that it portrayed a somewhat incompetent US President/leadership/response. Some people apparently consider that implausible. In the interest of not starting a political discussion, I'll say no more.

But basically, history wouldn't be very interesting if it wasn't full of unprecedented events. Things that happened that seemed impossible that, in retrospect, become completely normal. That Suez canal thread was just posted. Probably most people before last year would have thought it would be pretty silly to say that a single ship would accidentally block the Suez canal for weeks, causing a global response, economic shift, and supply chain problems. And yet.

Lots of things that happen within military planning, day-to-day operations and workplace etiquette, and internal politics similarly boggle the mind... unless you've seen them firsthand. A lot of this stuff is cultural and really really hard to sell in any other way. So I agree with you there that the GM's hand in providing that detail and flavor is a big factor in running an enjoyable game, but it mostly depends on everyone's expectations. And I still think that's the same in most games. You either do the work to present a realistic, believable world, or you don't. Whether that's research or clean-sheet invention. I can certainly see the difference in games I've run or played in where I've been able to invest the time and effort to do that versus other ones where I tried to wing it, or didn't really understand the setting.
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