Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

[Paul Farquhar]

Not a novel. If you had been paying attention, we have been discussing novel form, not short story or oral tales or plays.

Another meaningless distinction. A story is a story. The mass market novel is itself a relatively recent invention, itself around 200 years old.

Nope. It's called academia. I get that you don't like the genres, and that's fine. Lots of people don't. But, that doesn't change anything.

Academia, where people are paid to make stuff up. Sticking a label on something doesn't make the label true, no matter how many letters the labeller has after their name (I have ten after mine, so I know all about academia).

Oh, and 1950 is getting pretty close on a century btw.

If you think 70 is close to 100 then I think you need to resit maths.

But, no, it's not snobbery.

You are the one who excluded pulp fiction from being worthy of discussion, and snobbery is the only possible justification for that, especially as it relates to D&D.

Look, it's fairly simple. On one end, which we'll call Fantasy, you have those works that everyone will agree are fantasy. Tolkien, Howard, J. K. Rowlings, that sort of thing. And, what do those works have in common? Well, often they are morality tales, and typically, the non-real part of the story (ie. magic) is used as a plot device. The hero needs to see the Medusa, so, he gets a magic shield. Find the Horcruxes Harry! That sort of thing.

Howard, a morality tale?!! I take it you have never read a Conan story!

On the other end of the spectrum, we have those works that everyone will agree are SF. Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, for the golden age stuff, Stephen Baxter, Robert Reed, James Corey (The Expanse), and others. ((Ok, I admit, I read a LOT more SF than fantasy, so, my list is a bit biased)) What do these have in common?

They are all boring.

The quality of Science Fiction is measured by the number of exploding planets.

 

[Aldarc]

Look, it's fairly simple. On one end, which we'll call Fantasy, you have those works that everyone will agree are fantasy. Tolkien, Howard, J. K. Rowlings, that sort of thing. And, what do those works have in common? Well, often they are morality tales, and typically, the non-real part of the story (ie. magic) is used as a plot device. The hero needs to see the Medusa, so, he gets a magic shield. Find the Horcruxes Harry! That sort of thing.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have those works that everyone will agree are SF. Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, for the golden age stuff, Stephen Baxter, Robert Reed, James Corey (The Expanse), and others. ((Ok, I admit, I read a LOT more SF than fantasy, so, my list is a bit biased)) What do these have in common? Well, often they are about what it means to be human. Also, the non-real part of the story (the "science" stuff) is generally central to the theme of the story rather than something needed by the plot. Data is an android trying to be human. The idea of "sleeves" and "stacks" are central to the themes of immortality but not really a major part of the plot. Note, Altered Carbon isn't a PK Dick story.

You're appealing to academics about I seriously doubt that they would make the sort of arguments that you are now that attempts to center the respective genres into morality vs. whatever. Maybe it would help if you made a fallacious baseball analogy again. Please, Hussar, stop relying so heavily on shallow reductionism for your arguments. I honestly don't understand why you like digging yourself into these sorts of pits.

Another meaningless distinction. A story is a story. The mass market novel is itself a relatively recent invention, itself around 200 years old.

More like 300, but the modern novel is still relatively new. "Novelization" says more about popular writing convention than genre though.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you think 70 is close to 100 then I think you need to resit maths.

To be absolutely fair, a difference of 30 years is pretty small when talking about the whole of human history (12,020 years) and since 70 is greater than 50, it is closer to the century mark than the half way point.


Thinking more on your responses, @Hussar , I find myself curious. What about Moby Dick? It has some very very light fantastical elements, but it is clearly more about how to be a good person, and what that might look like, than it would be about what it means to be human. And there are a lot of tales like that which are not supernatural at all.


I also agree that dismissing anything that is not a novel is a disservice to the discussion. There was only one significant "Book" in western culture for a large span of a thousand years or so, but there were still stories. And things like Le'Morte de Artur clearly had a massive impact on the fantasy genre, despite being essentially an anthology of short stories more than a novel. And I think just as I would not say that Sherlock Holmes wasn't a detective story, I do not think I want to say the stories of Camelot do not fall within the genre of Fantasy.

 

[Hoffmand]

How about we just turn this argument in the opposite direction? There is no Arcane magic. It is all really just Psionics, with the people thinking it is magic having to use the crutches of verbal, somatic, and material components or a focus, to make it work. Arcane casters use and manipulate the power within themselves and within the environment around them. Take away the components and it is all just done with the mind. So maybe in a fantasy setting, everything is really Psionic and Divine, instead of Arcane and Divine.

I been doing that since the 80s. And my first DM before that. Or something very similar. Most people can’t do psions so they need the components to augment there very low psionic
Potential. Dragons and demons don’t use components because they can do it naturally

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You can't invoke Sherlock Holmes, not originally published as a novel!

You have to rule out Dickens too, on that basis.

 

[Hussar]

ROTFLMAO.

Been talking about novels all the way along. Been very, VERY careful to talk about novels. Repeatedly said I was talking about novels.

Ten pages later people bitch that I'm talking about novels.

Ok, folks, yeah, I can see the pretty standard anti-intellectual garbage truck being rolled out yet again. You folks have a good time with your echo chamber. I presented a solid argument, backed up by facts. To counter that, we've got adhominem cheap shots and the rest of the standard standbys.

Sure, whatever you say @Paul Farquhar and @Aldarc. All fantasy and science fiction is exactly the same and there are no differences within the genre. Fifty or so years of criticism be damned. What do they know anyway? I'd much rather get my facts from anonymous posters without any actual evidence or historical context than people who actually study this sort of thing.

 

[Aldarc]

Ok, folks, yeah, I can see the pretty standard anti-intellectual garbage truck being rolled out yet again. You folks have a good time with your echo chamber. I presented a solid argument, backed up by facts. To counter that, we've got adhominem cheap shots and the rest of the standard standbys.

Lol. First time that I've been accused of that as an academic. It's not like I haven't engaged genre criticism here or the usefulness of speculative fiction as a catch-all category. But sure, accuse people of being anti-intellectuals just because they disagree with your reductionistic interpretations.

Sure, whatever you say @Paul Farquhar and @Aldarc. All fantasy and science fiction is exactly the same and there are no differences within the genre.

I get that you're bitter, but there's no reason to resort to strawmen or to throw a tantrum. The existence of different common features between genres doesn't mean that your interpretations of what those differences may be are somehow inherently valid.

Fifty or so years of criticism be damned. What do they know anyway?

I wasn't aware that you cited any.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'm confused as to why it's useful to restrict the sample set to novels.

Let's suppose that if we do that (no short stories, films, plays, oral tales, poems, comics, video games, etc.) the distinction Hussar is describing is not only prevalent, but absolute. That is, every single fantasy novel is obviously about morality, and every single science fiction novel is obviously about what it means to be human.

What does that actually get us, other than an interesting and curious correlation? All those other media are still valid examples of genre...why exclude them?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

ROTFLMAO.

Been talking about novels all the way along. Been very, VERY careful to talk about novels. Repeatedly said I was talking about novels.

Err, No. You mentioned Howard. Just like Edgar Rice Burroughs (and Conan Doyle and Dickens) his stories where first published in magazines.

I presented a solid argument, backed up by facts.

Actually, most of your "facts" are wrong, and suggest you haven't actually read the novels you mention. Lets actually consider some of those novels, because it happens I've read most of them. For the sake of argument, I will use F and SF to denote the most common classification.

Howard (F): Conan stories are decidedly amoral
Heinlein (SF): Starship Troopers is an allegory about fascism. Which makes it a morality tale.
Frank Herbert (SF): Dune follows a standard heroes journey/chosen one narrative arc typical of fantasy epics.
Asimov (SF): His best stuff are Agatha Christie style whodunnits. Which are standard morality tales which end with the murderer caught and punished.

And, some of the authors you neglected to mention, presumably on the basis that it's anti-intellectual to read books written prior to 1960:

H.G. Wells (SF): War of the Worlds is widely considered an allegory of British Colonialism, which would make it a morality tale.
Jules Verne (SF): Most of his stuff is anti-colonial and/or anti-war, mixed with a good deal of Technology porn.

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, I would read Dune as a morality tale warning about false prophets. Or as one person succinctly summed up Dune: "If you walk without rhythm, you won't attract the worm."