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What is the worst piece of DM advice people give that you see commonly spread?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9009366" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>If such forces have definable derivatives, meaning "they change in consistent and meaningful ways that can be measured" which is necessary for them to be "physical laws" as we understand the term, they must have a differentiable symmetry, and thus be subject to a conservation law. Noether's theorem is <em>extremely</em> difficult to evade, and doing so basically means <em>you can't answer physics questions anymore.</em> You pretty much literally need to have something that breaks fundamental concepts like "direction has a consistent meaning" or "numbers can't wrap around from positive to negative if they get large enough." It really, really is that much of an issue: magic, as displayed in D&D, is fundamentally not obeying conservation laws of any kind, and as a result it cannot be meaningfully described by anything we would call "physical laws."</p><p></p><p>The one, and only, way to get around Noether's theorem is to have a force with a dissipative term. But that's even less useful: dissipative forces (like "friction," which is actually a convenient fiction gathering together all the little atomic forces and such that we cannot grapple with directly) necessarily <em>reduce</em> available quantities over time, forbidding even the possibility of increase. Since magic needs to be able to produce <em>more</em> stuff (in fact, it is almost totally built around doing so!), going for a dissipative force is a non-starter from the beginning.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But this contradicts physical law, which is <em>not</em> dependent on the willpower of living beings, indeed quite the opposite. That is one of the defining characteristics of physical law: it is simply what things <em>do,</em> with or without our consent.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, but you have had to (intentionally) <em>break</em> part of real physics (forces are what they are, you can only alter them by engaging other forces, and all of these forces <em>must</em> either have a conservation law or a dissipative term, mathematically, if they are to make any sense at all.) That's my point. You have produced something which lets you <em>feel</em> like it has clean, consistent physical laws, but it doesn't. It allows for behavior that would break physics, behavior that would generate mathematical gibberish or undefinable results, equivalent to demanding a real number ("real" in math terms, as opposed to "complex") that is greater than 7 and less than 3: no such real number exists, not because we haven't dreamed of one, but because the meaning of "real number" is incompatible with "more than 7 and less than 3." Like asking for the length of the fourth side of a triangle: there is no such thing to speak about, and cannot be, if we want to talk about triangles. "Adding" such a "fourth side" to a triangle means you've stopped talking about a "triangle" anymore—just like adding a "number" that is bigger than 7 <em>and</em> smaller than 3 means you can't be talking about something that meets the definition of "real numbers" anymore. </p><p></p><p>By "adding" a "fourth side" to a triangle, you have broken its triangleness. By "adding" these non-conservative, mind-affectable "forces," you have broken the natural-law-ness. There's nothing wrong with that! But it necessarily means breaking part of what makes our physical universe <em>work.</em></p><p></p><p>Are you familiar with the Navier-Stokes equations? The TL;DR is that they're the fluid motion equations (similar to Newton's laws, but for fluid flow.) Thing is...we don't know for sure if they actually work <em>always.</em> They work really really well 99.999999999999999% of the time, we've confirmed that across a host of fiendishly difficult mathematical constraints. But we do not actually have a mathematical proof that they <em>always</em> work, meaning, we do not have a <em>proof</em> that you cannot get some weird, weird set of conditions where in finite time things "blow up" or flow direction ceases to have meaning or something like that. If we did find such a condition, it would mean we would need to replace them, not that we had found new physics that allowed us to make fluids that flow infinitely fast or flow in every direction simultaneously!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9009366, member: 6790260"] If such forces have definable derivatives, meaning "they change in consistent and meaningful ways that can be measured" which is necessary for them to be "physical laws" as we understand the term, they must have a differentiable symmetry, and thus be subject to a conservation law. Noether's theorem is [I]extremely[/I] difficult to evade, and doing so basically means [I]you can't answer physics questions anymore.[/I] You pretty much literally need to have something that breaks fundamental concepts like "direction has a consistent meaning" or "numbers can't wrap around from positive to negative if they get large enough." It really, really is that much of an issue: magic, as displayed in D&D, is fundamentally not obeying conservation laws of any kind, and as a result it cannot be meaningfully described by anything we would call "physical laws." The one, and only, way to get around Noether's theorem is to have a force with a dissipative term. But that's even less useful: dissipative forces (like "friction," which is actually a convenient fiction gathering together all the little atomic forces and such that we cannot grapple with directly) necessarily [I]reduce[/I] available quantities over time, forbidding even the possibility of increase. Since magic needs to be able to produce [I]more[/I] stuff (in fact, it is almost totally built around doing so!), going for a dissipative force is a non-starter from the beginning. But this contradicts physical law, which is [I]not[/I] dependent on the willpower of living beings, indeed quite the opposite. That is one of the defining characteristics of physical law: it is simply what things [I]do,[/I] with or without our consent. Yes, but you have had to (intentionally) [I]break[/I] part of real physics (forces are what they are, you can only alter them by engaging other forces, and all of these forces [I]must[/I] either have a conservation law or a dissipative term, mathematically, if they are to make any sense at all.) That's my point. You have produced something which lets you [I]feel[/I] like it has clean, consistent physical laws, but it doesn't. It allows for behavior that would break physics, behavior that would generate mathematical gibberish or undefinable results, equivalent to demanding a real number ("real" in math terms, as opposed to "complex") that is greater than 7 and less than 3: no such real number exists, not because we haven't dreamed of one, but because the meaning of "real number" is incompatible with "more than 7 and less than 3." Like asking for the length of the fourth side of a triangle: there is no such thing to speak about, and cannot be, if we want to talk about triangles. "Adding" such a "fourth side" to a triangle means you've stopped talking about a "triangle" anymore—just like adding a "number" that is bigger than 7 [I]and[/I] smaller than 3 means you can't be talking about something that meets the definition of "real numbers" anymore. By "adding" a "fourth side" to a triangle, you have broken its triangleness. By "adding" these non-conservative, mind-affectable "forces," you have broken the natural-law-ness. There's nothing wrong with that! But it necessarily means breaking part of what makes our physical universe [I]work.[/I] Are you familiar with the Navier-Stokes equations? The TL;DR is that they're the fluid motion equations (similar to Newton's laws, but for fluid flow.) Thing is...we don't know for sure if they actually work [I]always.[/I] They work really really well 99.999999999999999% of the time, we've confirmed that across a host of fiendishly difficult mathematical constraints. But we do not actually have a mathematical proof that they [I]always[/I] work, meaning, we do not have a [I]proof[/I] that you cannot get some weird, weird set of conditions where in finite time things "blow up" or flow direction ceases to have meaning or something like that. If we did find such a condition, it would mean we would need to replace them, not that we had found new physics that allowed us to make fluids that flow infinitely fast or flow in every direction simultaneously! [/QUOTE]
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