How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[RefinedBean]

As a supplement to Clarke's Law, it appears that any sufficiently advanced skill is also indistinguishable from magic.

My mother manages to make the tastiest meatloaf in the world whenever she cooks it. MAGIC, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[BryonD]

That's what I thought.

Well duh, you change the question so it proves nothing then you seem to think it is meanignful that you proved nothing. Gee, thats deep.

"Did Robin Hood use magic?" doesn't prove that Robin Hood, as you envision him didn't use magic, unless you avoid leaving out the specifics that are being questioned.

I would be happy to agree that Robin Hood is not popularly assumed to use magic if you are happy to agree that he is not popularly assumed to be able to split an arrow any time he tries. My case is not that Robin Hood used magic (as you contend), but that IF Robin Hood can split an arrow any time he tries THEN Robin Hood is using magic. And I believe that I have been clear about that.


RC

No, I'd have to say you have not been remotely clear about that.

But whatever.... I am confused that you both agree that it is the popular conception and also try to claim that it is somehow "as I envision it". As I said before, it has nothing to do with my view and everything to do with popular view.

How many times did Robin Hood try? How many times did he succeed? How many times did he fail?

As the story goes, he decided he needed to do that, so he did. I call that "on demand". It seems quite clear he could do it again if needed. Yet no magic.

Does James Bond use magic? Or is he not larger than life?
What about the other JBs?
(Jason Bourne, Jack Bauer)

 

[BryonD]

As a supplement to Clarke's Law, it appears that any sufficiently advanced skill is also indistinguishable from magic.

Well, I can easily imagine goblins on the ground assuming the rogue must be using magic because they can't imagine that he could be that skilled. Being beyond the goblin's ability to distingish is not the question.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Does James Bond use magic? Or is he not larger than life?

James Bond is magic, he'd have to be to survive all the ludicrously dangerous situations he's been in, and consistently save the world by a hair's breadth time after time.

He isn't magic like Dr Strange though, it's a different sense of the word magic. Dr Strange uses magic, James Bond is magic.

Another way to look at it is to say that James Bond, like Robin Hood, is a fictional character and can do the things he does not because he is magic but because he is part of the action hero genre. If James Bond were real he'd probably not get past the interview stage for MI6.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There are at least two senses of magic here, three if you count the technical D&D sense. Magic as unknown, mysterious and magic as impossible, breaking the laws of physics (of our world). The magic of Clarke's law is magic as unknown. To a caveman a mobile phone would be magic. Sufficiently advanced technology. This is also what I think people mean when they talk about magic items not feeling magical enough in D&D when all their stats are listed in the book and you can buy them for cold hard cash. It's not mysterious enough to be magic, not weird enough.

So magic is unusual, out of the ordinary. And yet it has been said that Robin Hood's shaft-splitting would only be magic if it were performed consistently. This is another sense of magic. Magic as impossible. James Bond is magic in this sense.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Another sense of magic would be believing that correspondence, imitation or symbolism have power. Voodoo dolls, eating a lion's heart to give strength in battle, a little ball of bat guano and sulphur creating a fireball and so forth.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Check this out. YouTube : The Sling Shot Man - Amazing Marksman - Mixx

That's a Took! Or at least, there's some o' that ancestry goin' on there.

Pretty awesome, anyway. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Raven Crowking]

's not a case, 's an opinion.

No; it is a summation.

Make your case for it, just like we've been making cases for CaGI.

Go back upthread.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well duh, you change the question so it proves nothing then you seem to think it is meanignful that you proved nothing. Gee, thats deep.

My point was that the original question proved nothing, and was deisnged to push a point by avoiding giving the person asked the information necessary to make a meaningful answer.

 

[BryonD]

My point was that the original question proved nothing, and was deisnged to push a point by avoiding giving the person asked the information necessary to make a meaningful answer.

Well, you failed to demonstrate that point. My point is that Robin Hood is a well known character and is not associated with magic. The question, if polled correctly, would easily demonstrate that obvious truth. Your description of the question is completely flawed.