D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[pemerton]

Things like objects falling faster when they’re heavier are woven into the activities of the mission, and commented on in ways that make sense.

How does the author deal with Galileo's thought experiment (of a light object sitting atop a heavy object when both are then dropped, versus a single object of the same total mass - eg created by tying the light and heavy object together)?

 

[clearstream]

Saying it's grounded in science doesn't really change anything. Science is just used to define underlying reality. Newtonian physics was the scientific explanation up until Einsten's theory of relativity. That doesn't change reality, just our understanding of it. For that matter Newton'a definition of physics works just fine 99% of the time for people that live in a world with DnD level of technology.

To clarify, I mean a reasonable modern scientific understanding. Suppose a player asserts that S works in such-and-such a way, this matching the group's grasp of a moden scientific understanding while not impinging on any exceptions made for the sake of the fantasy genre: is that S accepted?

 

[pemerton]

I don't think universal gravity, relativity, the atomic theory of matter ever come up in most fiction so it doesn't matter.

They come up in SF RPGing. Eg when the PCs in my Traveller game were using their triple beam laser to melt through 4 km of ice to the alien installation buried beneath it, we - the game participants - Google up and quickly reviewed a scientific paper on the use of lasers to melt ice, in order to form a reasonable conjecture as to how long it would take.

When, in the same game, I was using my adaptation of a published module - Shadows - I gave a description of some technical effect that is found in the adventure, and the electrical engineer at my table groaned, face-palmed, but then allowed me to go on.

Whereas in a fantasy RPG, I wouldn't expect the same sort of response, because the fiction doesn't purport to be grounded in scientific reality and expressive of scientific possibility.

To make sure I have your point right, do you mean thar there are facts about the fiction describing D&D worlds that establish it (much as it is a fact about the fiction of Doyle’s London that a consulting detective lives at 221B Baker Street.) Including in that reasonable inferences from extant fiction.

Or do you mean that as to what groups playing and developing the fiction of their D&D world imagine, they don't ordinarily include such things (relativity etc.) due to lack of knowledge (including misapprehensions) or lack of interest (and perhaps both.

I'm talking about the setting(s) that D&D presupposes and encourages - a setting which includes flying dragons, giant terrestrial arthropods, and other impossible creatures; elemental planes, positive and negative material / energy planes, planes of infinite extent which can nevertheless be traversed to their boundaries in finite time travelling at finite speed; magically-powered perpetual motion machines; etc

These features entail that the reality of D&D worlds is not the physical reality of our real world.

Furthermore, the setting(s) that D&D presupposes and encourages incorporate features - like gods of diseases and of earthquakes; evil spirits and hauntings; etc - that strongly imply non-scientific explanations for various phenomena that actually (in the real world) have naturalistic explanations, but have been taken by many human beings to have supernatural explanations. D&D worlds appear to incorporate these sorts of supernatural explanations.

I summarise all this by saying physics is not a default for D&D worlds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To clarify, I mean a reasonable modern scientific understanding. Suppose a player asserts that S works in such-and-such a way, this matching the group's grasp of a moden scientific understanding while not impinging on any exceptions made for the sake of the fantasy genre: is that S accepted?

Why wouldn't it be?

 

[Micah Sweet]

They come up in SF RPGing. Eg when the PCs in my Traveller game were using their triple beam laser to melt through 4 km of ice to the alien installation buried beneath it, we - the game participants - Google up and quickly reviewed a scientific paper on the use of lasers to melt ice, in order to form a reasonable conjecture as to how long it would take.

When, in the same game, I was using my adaptation of a published module - Shadows - I gave a description of some technical effect that is found in the adventure, and the electrical engineer at my table groaned, face-palmed, but then allowed me to go on.

Whereas in a fantasy RPG, I wouldn't expect the same sort of response, because the fiction doesn't purport to be grounded in scientific reality and expressive of scientific possibility.

I'm talking about the setting(s) that D&D presupposes and encourages - a setting which includes flying dragons, giant terrestrial arthropods, and other impossible creatures; elemental planes, positive and negative material / energy planes, planes of infinite extent which can nevertheless be traversed to their boundaries in finite time travelling at finite speed; magically-powered perpetual motion machines; etc

These features entail that the reality of D&D worlds is not the physical reality of our real world.

Furthermore, the setting(s) that D&D presupposes and encourages incorporate features - like gods of diseases and of earthquakes; evil spirits and hauntings; etc - that strongly imply non-scientific explanations for various phenomena that actually (in the real world) have naturalistic explanations, but have been taken by many human beings to have supernatural explanations. D&D worlds appear to incorporate these sorts of supernatural explanations.

I summarise all this by saying physics is not a default for D&D worlds.

To me all of those things are explicit fantasy exceptions. Absent them I still expect gravity to work as expected, air and water to be necessary for most forms of life, and so on. I have the same expectation in science fiction (Earth physics with exceptions).

 

[mamba]

planes of infinite extent which can nevertheless be traversed to their boundaries in finite time travelling at finite speed

this does not only defy physics, it defies logic and math

 

[Autumnal]

How does the author deal with Galileo's thought experiment (of a light object sitting atop a heavy object when both are then dropped, versus a single object of the same total mass - eg created by tying the light and heavy object together)?

I don’t remember. I should reread it in the new year.

 

[clearstream]

in a fantasy RPG, I wouldn't expect the same sort of response, because the fiction doesn't purport to be grounded in scientific reality and expressive of scientific possibility.

I'm talking about the setting(s) that D&D presupposes and encourages - a setting which includes flying dragons, giant terrestrial arthropods, and other impossible creatures; elemental planes, positive and negative material / energy planes, planes of infinite extent which can nevertheless be traversed to their boundaries in finite time travelling at finite speed; magically-powered perpetual motion machines; etc

These features entail that the reality of D&D worlds is not the physical reality of our real world.

Furthermore, the setting(s) that D&D presupposes and encourages incorporate features - like gods of diseases and of earthquakes; evil spirits and hauntings; etc - that strongly imply non-scientific explanations for various phenomena that actually (in the real world) have naturalistic explanations, but have been taken by many human beings to have supernatural explanations. D&D worlds appear to incorporate these sorts of supernatural explanations.

I summarise all this by saying physics is not a default for D&D worlds.

Right, that makes sense. In terms of what I was asking it'd fall under reasonable inference from fiction and genre. This seems to be more than not purporting to be grounded in scientific reality but, as you put it, encouraging incorporation of fantastical features.

The mechanism of this doesn't yet seem entirely clear. Picture an array of fictional facts, some as yet not appearing or untested, others extant or in mind. An intuition I've been pursuing is that the former are not fantastical until in joining the latter they are said to be so. That they be fantastical is not resisted, but neither is it automatic: a myriad of details are accepted as being just like they are in the real world until they are modified (as encouraged.)

I think something like that likely because although we can easily pull out fantastical facts -- dragons etcetera -- in truth they are the minority of facts implied in play. Of course the minutiae is largely elided, but when we do scrutinise it the real world supplies the common experience which is our go to. I suppose in saying so, you might remark that a scientific appreciation of those details isn't encouraged (suggesting, were it not already obvious enough, the presence of tacit principles that guide us) so the "grounding in real world" may be impressionistic.

 

[Shardstone]

I think it depends on personality and how much of a rule-follower someone is vs someone who wants to improvise on top of the rules.

 

[AlViking]

To clarify, I mean a reasonable modern scientific understanding. Suppose a player asserts that S works in such-and-such a way, this matching the group's grasp of a moden scientific understanding while not impinging on any exceptions made for the sake of the fantasy genre: is that S accepted?

Characters don't know everything the players know. If I know a player has expertise in something like being a locksmith I may ask them to describe the process. They can't invent gunpowder because they're a chemist. So I don't see how it matters.