Interesting - after reading the comments I realized my love of the arts (as a reader/viewer, not as a practitioner), including theater, was the source of many unconscious assumption behind my question. I was (am) thinking that role-playing could be art by different means. I saw a couple of old modules by Gygax, and the stories and characters were really good, better than many movies I've seen. A good dungeon master could make quite a story - but perhaps the demands are just too high.
How would my question imply that I wasn't familiar with theater?
Yes, the old "well...a wizard did it" DeusExMagic-User. Sooo useful for the DM, especially if you are the sort who keeps tweaking the map, and have players puzzled by the appearance of new landforms not present on their earlier version of the document....
Once you realise that pedantry isn't part of the gameplay it gets a lot easier. It merely has to be good enough for those sitting at the table - who themselves are also invested in their suspension of disbelief.
> effort worthy of a major novel or movie
That's the thing, RPGs do not exist in a vaccum, nor are they trying to portray a particular historical era realistically - they are based on fantasy novels. That means you don't have to ..
> understand what a medieval blacksmith understands
... you merely have to make up what the minor character of a blacksmith in a Jack Vance novel might say. If you want to do some common tasks there is probably a table for armour repair or weaponsmithing costs in AD&D 2nd edition somewhere.
There's usually a bit of tension between railroading the players into set-pieces versus dropping hints and relying on them to cooperate, but that can be all part of the fun.
> consistent
Consistency issues can usually be fixed with wizards.
(edit: the whole issue is addressed by Shakespeare at the start of Henry V, "can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France" etc)