How much science do you like in your D&D? For example:
Depends entirely on the campaign we're playing at the time. Currently, we're playing in a world that was incredibly high magic - where the stuff of the unseen wove through the very fabric of existence, from indoor waste disposal (disintegration) and plumbing, to lights and horseless carriages, and teleportation booths on city streets to help you get around town, or even from city to city, faster. Then the magic started to change, and a chaotic semi-liquid magic began to ooze from the Earth, corrupting everything it touched.
The people of this world scrambled to create a great magic and science hybrid innovation to stave off the magical blight, and failed. Now, they live in a society where magic is innately wild and difficult to control, and science has reigned supreme - obviously in this case, science is a very important structure to not only observe, but draw upon in the day to day lives of adventurers.
1. Do your monsters have *sigh* Lighting Blood, and are your snakes poisonous, rather than venomous?
I've had creatures with statically-charged bodily fluids, and snake-like constructs that would technically wield poison as opposed to venom. If this is a reference to something specific, however, I'm afraid I don't get it.
2. Is magic a kind of science? Is magic more than just the manipulation of particles through the generation of electric potential within the brain that couples with a force known as the Weave to produce effects on 3d-dimensional structures?
In the campaign mentioned above, magic was treated like a science, abused, and now is the most anti-scientific thing on the planet. The magical origins, however, were non-scientific to begin with - people just treated it as something more quantifiable, because they were an advanced society and believed everything should be quantified.
3. Are your worlds planets? Do they exist in solar systems with correct mass to radius, logical core composition, rational positioning, and mathematically accurate orbits?
My worlds are indeed planets, and there is often a theme of astrological entities involved in some way, shape, or form. They are not always accurate by the comparison of real-world orbits and gravitational pull, but they are precise enough as to give the characters in the world realism. This implies, of course, a character cares about such things at some point in the campaign - for if something is not asked, it is never to be answered.
4. How do the planes exist? Are they separate from normal reality? How is this so?
This may be my blasphemy moment. Most of my favorite worlds aren't 'planar' in your typical sense. I've never enjoyed the plane-hopping aspects of Dungeons and Dragons, perhaps a reason I never got into the lore of M:tG. This is not a statement that these are bad, or wrong things, merely that they've never been my cup of tea. In that vein, I usually keep a mystery about the planes and their workings, and make magic to transverse these planes ancient and equally mysterious. In the science-heavy world mentioned above, the planes are tangible places that can actually be walked to, if you know the right paths to take. Fiends live beneath the surface of the earth, accessible only by a cave deep within the Glacial Peaks of the north - and so forth.
5. Is your table of elements expanded to include metallic elements like adamantium and mithral? If so, how? If not, have you made metals like beryllium adamantium? Do you not worry about it at all?
Surprisingly, it has never come up. I have plenty of scientific-minded players, and their characters are often skilled in the same manners, but the table itself and all its components has just never come up in 20+ years of this group being together.
In summary, if we have the desire to play in a world where science matters, we do all the work to maintain our verisimilitude. Otherwise, it's a 'when we need it' nature.
