"I think Hydrogen is a rare element" and other science facts.

[James Gasik]

A recent conversation with a friend of mine reminded me of an old issue of Knights of the Dinner Table. In it, the GM (B.A.) was running a science fiction game as a palate-cleanser for the shenanigans of Hackmaster. Long story short, the PC's decided to refuel their starship by dipping into an atmosphere to scoop up some good old Hydrogen, prompting the thread title.

There is no reason to believe a fantastic game world has to follow real-world scientific principles, and yet, many GM's seem to insist that the fundamentals of their game world are "just like Earth, save where noted". This usually runs headlong into desires to keep gunpowder from existing and of course, the strange schizo-tech of games (like say, D&D), where bastard swords, galleons, and articulated plate armor totally exist when other things developed in those same eras do not.

But sometimes, the GM just gets the science wrong! I'm curious to hear about other people's experiences with this sort of thing.

In mine, my friend made the off-hand comment that, in his world, an artifact was used to turn all the oceans into drinkable water. Everywhere.

When I asked him how the environmental catastrophe was averted, he gave me the "shocked Pikachu face".

"What are you talking about? How is this not a good thing?"

 

[Faolyn]

Well, the water won't be drinkable for long, what with all the marine life corpses floating in it...

 

[Joshua Randall]

Magic creates energy and matter out of nothing, meaning that the gameworld is constantly adding both to its (locally) closed system. I’m not a scientist so I’m not sure what would happen, but I’m pretty sure it would be bad.

 

[Alzrius]

I remember that KoDT strip. B.A. was miffed at Brian's directing the group's starship through a nearby planet to skim some of its atmosphere (or was it water, I can't remember now) and have the ship's processors separate out the hydrogen molecules, which was what powered their engine.

B.A. tried to say that hydrogen was an extremely rare element, and that you couldn't just skim some off a planet like foam off a latte. Brian pointed out that hydrogen is literally the first element on the periodic table, meaning that it was the most common element in the universe. The entire thing was (like most of KoDT) hilarious.

 

[aco175]

It must be rare, I have never seen it. Must be something like a ghost, bigfoot, or an honest politician.

 

[John Dallman]

An acquaintance was playing in a supposedly semi-realistic SF campaign, where they landed on the Sun. Until he had a quiet word with the GM.

There are plenty of people around who think they learned about the realities of space from Star Wars and/or Star Trek.

 

[dragoner]

There is a difference, you have to embrace it. I read a fairly long blog post about how a GM hated sci-fi, because his players had used gravity to overcome a situation, and how in fantasy they wouldn't have done it. I simply replied "your fantasy world doesn't have gravity?" And they blocked me, c'est.

 

[Micah Sweet]

An acquaintance was playing in a supposedly semi-realistic SF campaign, where they landed on the Sun. Until he had a quiet word with the GM.

There are plenty of people around who think they learned about the realities of space from Star Wars and/or Star Trek.

I doubt either franchise would make that mistake without one heck of an explanation.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I doubt either franchise would make that mistake without one heck of an explanation.

Well, if J.J. Abrams was in the helm they might...

 

[BookTenTiger]

Well, the water won't be drinkable for long, what with all the marine life corpses floating in it...

Free soup for everyone!