A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

[Maxperson]

Let me see if I can kill you in one hit with a longsword. There's no way my strength is 18, so even on a crit I can't do 20 points.

If you live, I'll accept your claim.

Nope. That doesn't work. Hit points are also a measure of skill, luck, divine protection, etc. That means that when you swing, if he dives out of the way and you just barely nick him physically, it could still be a 16 point crit.

 

[TwoSix]

Let's not forget those "magical" space ships and androids from the Barrier Peaks.

Of course they are. The fact that they existed in a universe in which it was possible to open a magic portal to another dimension means they existed in a supernatural universe, and everything in a supernatural universe is supernatural. Since I'm using supernatural and magical as synonymous, that makes them magical.

You're welcome to use "magic", the term, as some ritualistic subset of supernatural effects, but 5e doesn't support that usage of the term in its text.

 

[TwoSix]

That makes absolutely no sense to me why someone would take such a hard line.

Somehow building blocks (earth, wind, air and fire) in a world of magic are devoid of any Newtonian science because hey supernatural world. I guess the use of gunpowder is supernatural too?

Not sure why it's a "hard line", considering it doesn't affect the game one iota. It's just a semantic discussion, like most of the threads that get long and involved around here.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Things got pretty bonkers in here, eh?

 

[Shasarak]

That energy doesn't have to be magic, though. I'm fine with there being "The Force" and calling that magic. It flows through everything and binds it, without making what it flows through and binds magical. Luke did just fine levitating inanimate objects and bending minds of mundane people. You can have lots of magic present pretty much everywhere, and things that are magic, without the entire universe being magic.

Anakin could do it to Droids as well so that means the Force is not limited to living things.

 

[Shasarak]

I have a difficulty picturing a universal force that's also localized, but more power to you if it makes your cosmology feel cohesive.

Gravity is kind of bonkers and on the other hand it certainly helps to keep the cosmology cohesive.

 

[pemerton]

Not everything that is supernatural has to be magic

Would you care to elaborate on this? They seem to be synonyms to me, and when I Google a definition of magic I get "the power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces." I don't know what dictionary that is from, but it is the sort of thing I would have expected.

Just make "magic" a fifth universal force (to go with gravity, electromagnetic, weak, and strong) that some lifeforms in some places can access and shape and you're good to rock!

My entire D&D physics concept is based on this simple premise.

This doesn't seem very simple to me. I mean, I'm told that quantum gravity is quite hard (I haven't studied physics mysefl beyond high school); presumably it's no easier to explain how the notion of "lifeform" and "accessing a fifth universal force" are to be reconciled and integratd with existing knowledge of physics.

 

[pemerton]

Because they don't have to answer that question. It's self-evident. It would be ludicrous for a game like D&D to have objects fall unless acted on in a different way, require cutting objects to be sharp, require creatures to eat and sleep, have thrown objects go a much shorter distance than ones projected by a mechanical instrument, have blunt objects smash, and so on without it being Newtonian physics. If it were anything else that was simulating our physics, they would have explained it to us in the rule books like they do with everything else that is different.

I don't understand your point. The fact that certain beings (but not elves? who nevertheless can have children with humans) have to eat and sleep doesn't tell us anything meaningful about the physics of that world, if by "physcsc" we mean that discipline taught in schools and universities.

Human being since time immemorial have known that dropped objects fall; likewise those in the gameworld. But that tells us nothing about whether or not the gameworld is governed by universal gravitation, let alone the strong and weak nuclear forces that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has referred to. Newton's first law of motion is not self-evident. Einsteinian physics even moreso is not. And the existence of those nuclear forces is self-evidently not self-evident!

 

[pemerton]

20 hit points.
Prove me wrong.

I think that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s point is that the answer could be 20 hp, or 3 hp, or 50 hp.

Or 90% of hp remaining, or 10%, or 1%.

In other words, there is no correlatoin between hp remaining (either absolutely or proportionately) and any particular state of the fiction. Which means that knowing the state of the fiction (which is what PCs know) doesn't settle any question about hp remaining. Which means that knowledge of hp remaining is metagame knowledge, and declaring actions on the basis of such knowledge is metagaming.

Somehow building blocks (earth, wind, air and fire) in a world of magic are devoid of any Newtonian science because hey supernatural world. I guess the use of gunpowder is supernatural too?

If fire is a fundamenal element, then it is not combustion by way of oxidation as it is in the real world. Hence, whatever gunpowder is in that world, it is not something with the chemical properties and associated behaviours of gunpowder in the real world.

 

[Maxperson]

Anakin could do it to Droids as well so that means the Force is not limited to living things.

Was that in one of the cartoons or something?