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Why Do You Think Wizards Are Boring?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9093967" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Excellent way of putting it.</p><p></p><p>I prefer magic that stands with one foot in the miraculous and one foot in the scientific. Which is quite precedented: the purpose of magic, even back in Roman days, was to control reality and produce desired effects! To the Romans, witchcraft was a civil crime, but the difference between "witchcraft" (criminal behavior), "magic" (debatable behavior), and "religious ritual" (approved ot even <em>required</em> behavior) was extremely context-dependent and very much subject to interpretation. Apuleius, for example, successfully defended himself against a charge of witchcraft by effectively saying, in modern terms, "Look, I'm a <em>scientist.</em> I have to be able to experiment in order to find out what is true! That doesn't mean I'm a bad person hurting people with magic. It just means I keep an open mind and, when possible, try to test the outlandish claims we all hear from time to time."</p><p></p><p>So, while it should have wonders and things that can't be explained, it should also have some powers that are genuinely pretty well-known and perhaps even understood. And it is that precise ambiguity, that failure to fall <em>cleanly</em> into either "unexplainable" or "perfectly well-explained" that D&D magic is at its finest. Magic as a game where you only know half the rules.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9093967, member: 6790260"] Excellent way of putting it. I prefer magic that stands with one foot in the miraculous and one foot in the scientific. Which is quite precedented: the purpose of magic, even back in Roman days, was to control reality and produce desired effects! To the Romans, witchcraft was a civil crime, but the difference between "witchcraft" (criminal behavior), "magic" (debatable behavior), and "religious ritual" (approved ot even [I]required[/I] behavior) was extremely context-dependent and very much subject to interpretation. Apuleius, for example, successfully defended himself against a charge of witchcraft by effectively saying, in modern terms, "Look, I'm a [I]scientist.[/I] I have to be able to experiment in order to find out what is true! That doesn't mean I'm a bad person hurting people with magic. It just means I keep an open mind and, when possible, try to test the outlandish claims we all hear from time to time." So, while it should have wonders and things that can't be explained, it should also have some powers that are genuinely pretty well-known and perhaps even understood. And it is that precise ambiguity, that failure to fall [I]cleanly[/I] into either "unexplainable" or "perfectly well-explained" that D&D magic is at its finest. Magic as a game where you only know half the rules. [/QUOTE]
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