The Realism Bug-a-Boo

It's a Game!
White box has it's roots deeply set in wargaming, which preceded it by a century or so and had gained a degree of popularity a decade or so before white box with the publication of Avalon Hill strategy games and various rules for wargames using miniature figures. Wargaming combined game mechanics with a desire to simulate the troops, terrain and conditions of various historic military battles using available data. Simulation, of course, implies a connection to reality. Game designers balance a need for fun and playability with a desire to model the most realistic simulation of actual events possible in order to place the players in a sort of "time machine" where they can experience what it was like to be there, in command, on some historic battlefield.
According to gamer legend, Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson, the authors of white box, were avid wargamers and one can still find wargame miniatures rules and boardgames written or co-authored by them. At some point they came upon the idea to combine their interest in fantastic literature, sword & sorcery tales, and their love of wargaming. The Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns and white box was the result. White box rules contain many abstractions that allow the game to handle various happenings in the "real world" using available data and taking into account a random factor producing an outcome that has important implications for future in game situations and events including success or failure. Abstractions are common in gaming and to some degree unavoidable as we can hardly go around hacking at each other with steel swords, lopping off arms.
The white box introduced lots of people, both wargamers and non-wargamers to a new type of hobby game. I don't know if wargamers and non-wargamers differ regarding their desire for realism in their games, but being a wargamer I recall going through a period where I sought rules with a more transparent connection to what I perceived as the reality of medieval fantasy. In one respect it seems rather silly to talk about realism in connection with gaming in a fantasy/make-believe setting, let alone realistic magic, but such discussions are as old as the hobby.
Mr. Gygax occasionally spoke about the bug-a-boo of realism in fantasy gaming and pointed out the rather non-realistic nature of such an elusive goal as realism in gaming. By contrast, he would also include such mechanics as weapon verses armor class modifiers in Greyhawk and the advanced game player's handbook in an obvious attempt to add realistic detail and complexity. Many game designers and house-ruling referees make similar attempts to bring more realism to their game. At some point they often (re)discover the need for balance between fun and realistic detail.
Abstract game mechanics can provide very realistic outcomes if properly designed. Perceived realism is therefore often a matter of the transparency of details that the gamer can see are effecting the outcome such that "this" and "that" are taken into account. There is no doubt that some members of the hobby will continue to prefer more overt realism and therefore detail and complexity in their game than others will. (Some may even prefer less.) For a game like white box that is easily modified and added to, this becomes just a matter of house-ruling or taking the game beyond the rules as written. For those desiring published rules written with more realism in mind, there are plenty to choose from.