"Modern" science in D&D

[Celestial Weasel]

We just had a new player in our game try to explain a bunch of his traits/stats by saying his character had inherited this from his mother and that from his father. The player seemed kinda upset when the DM told him that genetics just didn't work the same way in the campaign world. He just didn't get that things could be that much different from the "real world".

Anyway, this got me thinking... how do other people treat "modern" science in their games. Do you have things like genetic inheritance, quantum physics, Bernouli's principles, chemical bonding?

Just curious.

 

[Black Omega]

We just had a new player in our game try to explain a bunch of his traits/stats by saying his character had inherited this from his mother and that from his father. The player seemed kinda upset when the DM told him that genetics just didn't work the same way in the campaign world. He just didn't get that things could be that much different from the "real world".

Anyway, this got me thinking... how do other people treat "modern" science in their games. Do you have things like genetic inheritance, quantum physics, Bernouli's principles, chemical bonding?

Just curious.

For the most part it just never comes into play. Maybe it's there..maybe it isn't...it just has no impact on the games.

To me it seems curious a DM would bother to say "No, you don't inherit that bad temper from your dad."

 

[Mouseferatu]

Like Black Omega above, I'd have to say that most of the time it simply doesn't enter into it.

When it does, however, we tend to assume a scientific default. That is, unless the DM says otherwise, gravity works the same, genetics work the same (mostly; there have to be some changes to explain those half-orcs, after all), and the laws of physics work the same (except when magic is in use).

As I said, though, that's the default. If the DM decides things work differently, that's fine--but he needs to let the players know that things are a bit different here.

If leaping off a cliff is going to result in me falling upward, I want to know about it in advance, darn it!