How far can suspension of disbelief go before players start going "this is just (beep)ing ridiculous

[Azaraxzealot]

couldnt fit the extra "? at the end. oh well.

but i just want to know how ridiculous i can make things in my game before people start realizing how ridiculous it is and become disjointed from the experience

 

[Mr. Omega]

It all depends on the context. Set up things, explain them. Make them SEEM plausible, even if they clearly are not. If it makes sense in your world, they should be able to tolerate it. Or, you can just go and make it batshit crazy, and leave them guessing for the next surprise.

 

[FalloutJack]

You'd be surprised.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I think there is a certain threshold to any suspension of disbelief.

I read the epic of Beowulf for a class, and I did stop my class to question why there was dragon that had a concept of monetary value (it guarded gold seemingly because it choose to and claimed ownership over it). Why would it want gold? What would it do with the gold?

I can buy Grendel and his mom being demons on faith, they're evil and powerful but they flesh out their backstory and explain why they do what they do. Some dumb broad in the class called me out on it saying "It's a dragon, they don't exist so what does it matter?" and I hate people that say that because that's just lazy! If you don't eventually have a line for disbelief all literature might as well be like the Transformer's franchise, mindless entertainment.

 

[hittite]

It varies from person to person. Everything has something different that breaks immersion. For me, as long as things remain sufficiently awesome, I'll forgive a lot.

 

[NeutralDrow]

It varies not just from person to person, but work to work, and even medium to medium (here I'm thinking of necessary changes in book to film conversions).

 

[Zacharine]

Personally, until one of the established in-universe rules is broken repeatedly, or multiple rules broken.

Say, for example, that in the game people have an innitiate magic ability of flight. Groovy, I can dig that.

But then, to be faced with a loss or though choice that could have been resolved/sidestepped for the better by flying, but for an unexplained reason being unable to, I can't take. Because it has already been established that people can fly. Likewise, if you establish that dead people can be resurrected, there ought to be no dead party member that you can't resurrect without adequate reason.

My suspension of disbelief is pretty great when it comes down to the rules beneath a realm. Flying people, disregarding Einstein and Newton while in space, dimension hopping aliens, gods who respond to prayers etc. Doesn't matter, as long as it is consistent.

 

[DkLnBr]

I guess its has to do with the context of the the idea. For example, the Jedi in Star Wars are an order of space monks who are lead by a small green ninja master, who can use laser swords to deflect concentrated beams of light, and have bacteria in in their body that gives them super powers. So even outrageous sounding ideas can be pulled of if properly executed

 

[ThorUK]

Depends on what you're trying to say with the story of the game, the setting, the pace, etc. And veen so , what works for one person not might for another: for example, playing through Fallout New Vegas, after having killed my would-be executioner(s), the game decidded my main quest would logically be to try and take over the Strip, or help one of the major factions to do so; having played the character for almost a week I had a pretty good feel for what would and would not make sense, and this, frankly, wouldn't. Perhaps if I'd played a different sort of character, it would have flowed seamlessly, perhaps it's just my own expectations which disagree with the storyteller. Either way, I'd suggest going with your instinct; you can't please everyone all the time!

 

[Tsunimo]

I think there is a certain threshold to any suspension of disbelief.

I read the epic of Beowulf for a class, and I did stop my class to question why there was dragon that had a concept of monetary value (it guarded gold seemingly because it choose to and claimed ownership over it). Why would it want gold? What would it do with the gold?

I can buy Grendel and his mom being demons on faith, they're evil and powerful but they flesh out their backstory and explain why they do what they do. Some dumb broad in the class called me out on it saying "It's a dragon, they don't exist so what does it matter?" and I hate people that say that because that's just lazy! If you don't eventually have a line for disbelief all literature might as well be like the Transformer's franchise, mindless entertainment.

EDIT: I misread it and thought you were talking about the Epic of Gilgamesh for a second... now i am dissapointed... oh well
and you have to remember, the person who wrote this probably weren't concerned about why a dragon would need gold...
Why do raccoon(raccoons?) need shiny things?
They don't, but they are attractive to the eye, so why would you not want them?

 

[tthor]

i usually have a pretty high tolerance for suspension of belief. i try not to get hung up on small things. in a way, its not so much the story thats important, but the way that its told. crap storys can be told beautifully, and great storys can be told like crap.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I'll give you two examples where I was asked to accept some plot point that was so ridiculous that it absolutely halted my ability to play the game.

HAWX - a PMC invades the united states. After a handful of missions, they had lost sufficient personnel that even a major military power would be considering surrender and yet they persisted. They also started a war for reasons that weren't entirely clear. Why mercenaries were so willing to die for a cause that was never explained was bad enough. The question of where they acquired the dozens of divisions and squadrons required to even hope to conquer the US is even worse especially considering that they paid better than the US military!

Army of Two - terrorists hijak an aircraft carrier. Sunk I could believe, but hijacked? A fortress of steel protected by dozens of the deadliest machines on the planet surrounded by a fleet capable of bringing most nations to their knees without help was hijacked. A ship that is host to thousands of armed men and women was hijaked. Sure, there is a quantity of personnel that could seize such a target, but even with complete strategic and tactical surprise a stout defense would quickly form. Even if there were enough terrorists to grind there way through the narrow corridors and tiny rooms, seizing the bridge would do them no good as the ship can still be steered from the furthest possible point away from the bridge (the engine room). Even if it looked as though the ship would be lost and there was no hope of launching a counter attack it would simply be scuttled. Of all the fates I could imagine for a carrier the one least like is that it is hijacked.

 

[Yokai]

Honestly, suspension of disbelief isn't all that important if whatever you're doing is fun. Sure, Just Cause 2 has you surfing on fighter jets going at five hundred miles an hour and a limitless parachute that can be used to shoot yourself into the air, but no one cares because you're having a blast doing it. Don't worry about believability as much as enjoyability.

 

[Proton Packmule]

I see the question all the time about films, such as the new pile-of-arse Resident Evil film (imagine me saying that scornfully, if you will). Apparently super-mega-awesome-hot-etc Alice loads quarters into a 12-Guage and fires it. Someone on a forum rightly questioned this, and was shouted down in this manner;

"LOL theRS zomBIEs and lickerS And stuff ANd yoR asking THAT lol!"

Yes, there are zombies, lickers, executioners. There are giant monsters that sprout from a single body, because they have a parasite (that can apparently create something from nothing). Do I care? No, because within its world, that's what happens. If such things existed, that's how they'd act, but they don't. Shotguns exist, as do quarters. They've not been created specifically for the story.

I guess that's the distinction I draw, if something is from someone's imagination, go absolutely nuts. Dwarfs, magic, lightsabers, Codecs, clones, genetic memory from a transplanted hand (oh Metal Gear.. How little sense you make) are all fine, because they're a part of a whole.

However when you have a work of fantasy, and start dicking about with things that don't make sense (innovative fantasy as opposed to corruption of established reality) that's when it starts to get ridiculous.

 

[Ranorak]

I found that personally, the more realistic a game tries to be, the less I'm willing to suspend my disbelief.

Example:
pyromaniac squirrel in psychonauts. Sure.
stationary cars exploding in GTA 4 because I shot the wheels? Ah hell no.

 

[Flour]

Honestly, suspension of disbelief isn't all that important if whatever you're doing is fun. Sure, Just Cause 2 has you surfing on fighter jets going at five hundred miles an hour and a limitless parachute that can be used to shoot yourself into the air, but no one cares because you're having a blast doing it. Don't worry about believability as much as enjoyability.

Suspension of disbelief is the most important thing for any form of media.
Just Cause 2 wouldn't be fun if you couldn't suspend your disbelief and accept that any of those things was possible in that game world.

On-Topic: The fastest any game broke my suspension of disbelief was in the first few minutes of Bioshock. I could accept the giant underwater town, the flying turrets but NOT the giant dirty needle that the character you're playing as jammed in his arm without thinking about it.

 

[MrGalactus]

G-Man appearance in the middle of episode 2. had NO idea what was happenning or why.

 

[WhyLater]

I think there is a certain threshold to any suspension of disbelief.

I read the epic of Beowulf for a class, and I did stop my class to question why there was dragon that had a concept of monetary value (it guarded gold seemingly because it choose to and claimed ownership over it). Why would it want gold? What would it do with the gold?

I can buy Grendel and his mom being demons on faith, they're evil and powerful but they flesh out their backstory and explain why they do what they do. Some dumb broad in the class called me out on it saying "It's a dragon, they don't exist so what does it matter?" and I hate people that say that because that's just lazy! If you don't eventually have a line for disbelief all literature might as well be like the Transformer's franchise, mindless entertainment.

Whoa, let me try to shed some light on dragons for you.

Beowulf was written (read: scribed) by a medieval monk. At the time of his writing, the mythos of dragons was well-established. A crucial aspect of dragons (One that's actually been lost in some more contemporary media. "Reign of Fire", I'm looking at your stupid ass.) is their intelligence. Incredible amounts of intelligence, physical power, and longevity make a cocktail for arrogance. Arrogance begets greed, among other things; this is the classic philosophical and sometimes-theological discussion of pride as the root of all evil. The dragon represents pure, distilled pride - the humbling of which is the ultimate test for the Geat, who himself is guilty of pride. Anything else is just a flying dinosaur.

For further insight into this, I recommend becoming familiar with two things:
1) The Tokien mythos, and by extension the Dungeons and Dragons mythos (it's in the name!). Specifically, read the Hobbit, and read up on dragons from D&D 3.5. Getting your hands on the Draconomicon would be a major plus.

2) Read "Grendel", a short, easy-to-read novella written by John Gardner in 1971. It's from Grendel's point of view, and in it Grendel is quite intelligent. At one point in the book he actually has a lengthy discourse with the dragon himself. The things the dragon says are simply awe-inspiring. Probably the only work of heavy-handed existentialism that I can really appreciate.


So uh... OT? As has been said, consistency is key for suspension of disbelief. Unless discrepancies are purposefully lampshaded for comedic effect. Here's a source for you, too!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief

Whew, I'm done... And to think, all that work could have gone to my thesis...

 

[thenamelessloser]

Fallout 3's ending broke it for me.

Spoiler

In fallout 3, you have the option of sacrificing yourself or another person that had to go into some radiation to press a button. Yet the sacrifice should have been completely unnecessary since I had a companion who was immune to radiation, yet the companion said something about me having to accept my destiny or some bullshit.

I heard the DLC may have fixed that part of the ending but not sure since I never played the DLC.