D&D 5E Guns in your world, and in mine!


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Completely sure, at least in case of arcane magic. Even divine and nature magic is, at most, mysterious in terms of where it comes from. How it works is predictable. Arcane magic is straight up scientific.
By "arcane magic" I assume you mean "wizardry", because sorcerers, bards, and warlocks sure aren't scientific. (Frankly, "arcane magic" is more a catch-all label than a real type of magic.) And yes, wizards are at least in the business of intellectual inquiry, but they're still in the memorize-what-works-and-repeat-it-by-rote stage, like ancient engineers before advanced mathematics. The scientist in me recoils at calling any discipline that uses the term "ritual" "scientific". One does not conduct the Ritual of Titration in chemistry (unless one is a Warhammer 40K tech-priest, QED).

And what wizards can do barely scratches the surface of magic. In just about every setting there are always older and deeper magics that wizards cannot control or even understand.

PS: Look up the word "arcane". :)

The lightning rail is a fantasy world element. It isn't sci fi, at all. Warforged and airships, either. They are all powered and/or created by magic, in a fantastical world that runs on magic. That is fantasy.
So because the source of the power is "magic", it's automatically fantasy? If we called electricity "magic" would our own world be fantastical? Because that's really the question here: is magic in this setting treated as something regular and functional like electricity, or is it treated as something mystical and numinous like a thunderstorm?

or perhaps you think Harry Potter isn't fantasy? Magic is understood, studied in school, predictable, and permeates every part of life, from flying buses to healing potions.
Really? The plot centers around prophecy, which is not understood, the school studies about which are Hogwarts hogwash, which is totally unpredictable (ironically), and which is very rare even among wizards. Ditto the power of love, ancient irreproducible artifacts, and secret rituals to make oneself immortal. The magic Harry and friends learn to control is surface-level stuff. And in the hands of a different author, could easily become a SF-style tool. Ever heard of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? :)

A fantasy world is fantasy because because it is fantastical...
This is tautological. What makes something "fantastical"? I assume you don't think Star Trek is a fantasy franchise; what makes Star Trek not fantastical?

It's a magical floating train!
We actually have those, you know.
 
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Salamandyr

Adventurer
I can't tell on my screen if the smaller mark on the left breast is a dent from a musket ball or a Schumacher nipple. But if the former, case closed.

Mark on the left breast looks like a musket ball dent; might be a proofmark (which would be a musket ball dent, but an intentional one)--it's a little high for a a nipple
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
@TheCosmicKid ok dude, you go with that, if it makes you happy.



I dont beleive for a moment that you don't understand that Star Trek is based almost entirely on things that are scientifically possible, or that the difference is exactly that fantasy is fantastical and impossible. If you make a science fiction world that is so fantastical and impossible that all the stuff looks like magic, it might also be fantasy. The two aren't even mutually exclusive.


EDIT: deleted the bits that were more...outwardly expressive of my annoyance. Apologies.
 
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I dont beleive for a moment that you don't understand that Star Trek is based almost entirely on things that are scientifically possible...
There's plenty of stuff that might as well be magic in Star Trek, from telepathy to extradimensional quasi-deities. They just don't call them "magic", and they approach them with an Enlightenment perspective rather than a Romantic one. The whole conflict between Picard and Q is basically a SF protagonist declining to be impressed by a fantasy character. It's that attitude that makes Star Trek science fiction, not some metric of what is scientifically possible. Tons of science fiction is based on positing something impossible and then thinking through the consequences. (Hell, if I wanted to nitpick, even such Star Trek staples as warp drives, transporters, and replicators are flatly impossible as far as current science is able to determine. "Heisenberg compensators" = "a wizard did it".)
 


doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
There's plenty of stuff that might as well be magic in Star Trek, from telepathy to extradimensional quasi-deities. They just don't call them "magic", and they approach them with an Enlightenment perspective rather than a Romantic one. The whole conflict between Picard and Q is basically a SF protagonist declining to be impressed by a fantasy character. It's that attitude that makes Star Trek science fiction, not some metric of what is scientifically possible. Tons of science fiction is based on positing something impossible and then thinking through the consequences. (Hell, if I wanted to nitpick, even such Star Trek staples as warp drives, transporters, and replicators are flatly impossible as far as current science is able to determine. "Heisenberg compensators" = "a wizard did it".)

Very few things in Trek are lacking in any scientific basis. From Q to Warp Drives, it's all stuff we know might be possible, but are varying degrees of removal away from testing for/developing further than the theoretical. Theoretical=\=impossible, or magical.
Science is what makes a given work of speculative fiction science fiction, while the fantastical and wondrous make a work fantasy. Combining those can make something both, or not, depending on presentation, mostly.

Mall of which is part of a nit pickey tangent that has nothing to do with the setting I proposed, since absolutely nothing about that proposal even requires any lack of mystery and wonder. The common man being able to draw basic glyphs to cool a box full of food or heat a pot (or reservoir) of water doesn't make a setting "not fantasy", but even if it did (and it definately doesn't), that element of a setting doesn't preclude the elements that you insist are what make Eberron a fantasy setting.

A world where physical magic follows rules, where magically created fire still follows the same laws as mundane Fire, except as acted upon by magic, and where magic is studied at the same schools as physics and chemistry, can still have gods and tree spirits and prophecies. And either way, isn't any less a fantasy setting than one where magic is unknowable and even guys like Modenkeinen are basically just guessing, apparently.

Note, I roll my eyes at this idea of wizards not really understanding how spells work. IMO, it is 100% nonsensical. Arcane magic is predictable, follows hard and fast rules, and can be mastered and advanced through rigorous analytical study. The fact that sorcerers and warlocks don't have to is irrelevant. A wizard can study their magic and go, "yeah, that is the same fireball spell I cast, your body is just replacing the material components with an exertion of will and physical energy. Fastinating!" And then go into a rant about the mechanics of energy manipulation to create the fireball effect.

Warlocks are a similar case, except by the core fluff their spells come from a patron, so they've no need to actually understand them any more than a gunslinger need understand gunpowder in order to shoot people well.

As for bards, they go to college to learn most of their magic. Said magic is just as predictable and based on solid rules as wizardry.

Re: Harry Potter. My eyes are starting to hurt. HP magic is entirely scientific. It works on knowable laws/principles, and can be mastered through rigorous analytical study, and advances all the time due to said study. There is plenty they don't yet understand, and knowledge that has been lost to time, because there didn't used to be schools and careful records.
There is no reason to beleive that any artifact in the world couldn't be replicated with the same knowledge that was used to make it, barring a need for circumstances that no longer exist, or happy infrequently, etc. all of it is knowable, just as all of physics is knowable. In both cases, not all of it is known, but unknown=\=unknowable.
 

Derren

Hero
Indeed, link goes to a pic of a plate cuirass worn by a French soldier in the Battle of Waterloo.

http://waterloo200.org/200-object/antoine-fauveau-cuirass/

Yes; it's got a hole through it, but it took more than a musket ball to pierce it. That there is cannon shot.

While armor never really took off in the US; in nearly every other nation, armor never went away. And they wouldn't have worn it if it wasn't useful.

And if you scroll a bit down you get a link to a penny which stopped a musket ball
http://waterloo200.org/200-object/penny-dented-by-a-bullet/
 

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